No tour of Germany is complete without a look at its historic and reunited capital. Over the last two decades, Berlin has been a construction zone. Standing on ripped-up tracks and under a canopy of cranes, visitors have witnessed the rebirth of a great European capital. Although construction continues, today the once-divided city is thoroughly woven back together. Berlin has emerged as one of Europe’s top destinations: captivating, lively, fun-loving, all-around enjoyable—and easy on the budget.
Of course, Berlin is still largely defined by its tumultuous 20th century. The city was Hitler’s capital during World War II, and in the postwar years, it became the front line of a new global war—one between Soviet-style communism and American-style capitalism. The East-West division was set in stone in 1961, when the East German government boxed in West Berlin with the Berlin Wall. The Wall stood for 28 years. In 1990, less than a year after the Wall fell, the two Germanys—and the two Berlins—officially became one. When the dust settled, Berliners from both sides of the once-divided city faced the monumental challenge of reunification.
Throughout the Cold War, Western travelers—and most West Berliners—got used to thinking of western Berlin and its Kurfürstendamm boulevard as the heart of the city. With the huge changes the city has undergone since 1989, the real “city center” is now, once again, Berlin’s historic center (the Mitte district, around Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse).
When the Wall came down, the East was a decrepit wasteland and the West was a paragon of commerce and materialism. Urban planners seized on the city’s reunification and the return of the national government to make Berlin a great capital once again. Now, a quarter-century later, the old “East Berlin” is where you feel the vibrant pulse of the city, while the old “West Berlin” has the feel of a chic, classy suburb. Berliners joke that they don’t need to travel anywhere because their city’s always changing. Spin a postcard rack to see what’s new. A 10-year-old guidebook on Berlin covers a different city.
But even as the city busily builds itself into the 21st century, Berlin has made a point of acknowledging and remembering its past. A series of thought-provoking memorials installed throughout the city center—chief among them the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe—directly confront some of Germany’s most difficult history of the last century. Lacing these sights into your Berlin sightseeing intensifies your understanding of the city and its past.
As you walk over what was the Wall and through the well-patched Brandenburg Gate, it’s clear that history is not contained in some book; it’s an evolving story in which we play a part. In Berlin, the fine line between history and current events is excitingly blurry.
But even for non-historians, Berlin is a city of fine experiences. Explore the fun and funky neighborhoods in the former East, packed with creative hipster eateries and boutiques trying to one-up each other. Go for a pedal or a cruise along the delightful Spree riverfront. In the city’s world-class museums, walk through an enormous Babylonian gate amid rough-and-tumble ancient statuary, and peruse canvases by Dürer, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. Nurse a stein of brew in a rollicking beer hall, or dive into a cheap Currywurst.
Berlin today is the nuclear fuel rod of a great nation. It’s vibrant with youth, energy, and an anything-goes-and-anything’s-possible buzz (Munich feels spent in comparison). And it’s a magnet for a young international crowd—who have overtaken some neighborhoods in such huge numbers that many expats get by just fine without knowing much German. Berlin is both extremely popular and surprisingly affordable. As a booming tourist draw, Berlin now welcomes more visitors annually than Rome.
On all but the shortest trips through Germany, I’d give Berlin three nights and at least two full days, and spend them this way:
Day 1: Begin your day getting oriented to this huge city. For a quick and relaxing once-over-lightly tour, jump on one of the many hop-on, hop-off buses that make two-hour narrated orientation loops through the city. Use the bus to get off and on at places of interest (such as Potsdamer Platz). Then walk from the Reichstag (reservations required to climb its dome), under the Brandenburg Gate, and down Unter den Linden following my “Best of Berlin” self-guided walk. Tour the German History Museum, and cap your sightseeing day by catching a one-hour boat tour (or pedaling a rented bike) along the park-like banks of the Spree River from Museum Island to the Chancellery.
Day 2: Spend your morning touring the great museums on Museum Island (note that the Pergamon Museum’s famous altar is out of view until 2019). Dedicate your afternoon to sights of the Third Reich and Cold War: After lunch, hike to the Topography of Terror exhibit and along the surviving Niederkirchnerstrasse stretch of the Wall to Checkpoint Charlie. Head to the Berlin Wall Memorial for a more in-depth survey of that infamous barrier, or swing by the Jewish Museum. Finish your day in the lively Prenzlauer Berg district.
Berlin merits additional time if you have it. There’s much more in the city (such as the wonderful Gemäldegalerie art museum). And nearby are some very worthwhile day trips: At Potsdam, glide like a swan through the opulent halls of an imperial palace or, at Oranienburg, ponder the darkest chapter of this nation’s past at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial. The historic town of Wittenberg—less than an hour away by train—is gearing up for the 500th birthday of the Reformation in 2017.
Berlin was a humble, marshy burg—its name perhaps derived from an old Slavic word for “swamp”—until prince electors from the Hohenzollern dynasty made it their capital in the mid-15th century. Gradually their territory spread and strengthened, becoming the powerful Kingdom of Prussia in 1701. As the leading city of Prussia, Berlin dominated the northern Germanic world—both militarily and culturally—long before there was a united “Germany.”
The only Hohenzollern ruler worth remembering was Frederick the Great (1712-1786). The ultimate enlightened despot, he was both a ruthless military tactician (he consolidated his kingdom’s holdings, successfully invading Silesia and biting off a chunk of Poland) and a cultured lover of the arts (he actively invited artists, architects, and other thinkers to his lands). “Old Fritz,” as he was called, played the flute, spoke six languages, and counted Voltaire among his friends. Practical and cosmopolitan, Frederick cleverly invited to Prussia Protestants who were being persecuted elsewhere in Europe—including the French Huguenots and Dutch traders. Prussia became the beneficiary of these groups’ substantial wealth and know-how. Frederick the Great left Berlin—and Prussia—a far more modern and enlightened place than he found it. Thanks largely to him, Prussia was well-positioned to become a magnet of sorts for the German unification movement in the 19th century.
When Germany first unified, in 1871, Berlin (as the main city of its most powerful constituent state, Prussia) was its natural capital. Even in the disarray of post-WWI Germany, Berlin thrived as an anything-goes, cabaret-crazy cultural capital of the Roaring ’20s. During World War II, the city was Hitler’s headquarters—and the place where the Führer drew his final breath. When the Soviet Army reached Berlin in 1945, the protracted fighting left the city in ruins.
After World War II, Berlin was divided by the victorious Allied powers. The American, British, and French sectors became West Berlin, and the Soviet sector, East Berlin. In 1948 and 1949, the Soviets tried to starve the 2.2 million residents of the Western half in an almost medieval-style siege, blockading all roads in and out. But they were foiled by the Berlin Airlift, with the Western Allies flying in supplies from Frankfurt 24 hours a day for 10 months.
Years later, with the overnight construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, an Iron (or, at least, concrete) Curtain literally cut through the middle of the city, completely encircling West Berlin—for details, see “The Berlin Wall (and Its Fall)” on here.
While the wild night when the Wall came down (November 9, 1989) was inspiring, Berlin still faced a fitful transition to reunification. Two cities—and countries—became one at a staggering pace. Reunification had its downside, and the Wall survives in the minds of some people. Some “Ossies” (impolite slang for Easterners) missed their security. Some “Wessies” missed their easy ride (military deferrals, subsidized rent, and tax breaks for living in an isolated city surrounded by the communist world). For free spirits, walled-in West Berlin was a citadel of freedom within the East.
More than 25 years later, the old East-West division has faded. The city government has been eager to charge forward, with little nostalgia for anything associated with the East. Big corporations and the national government have moved in, and the dreary swath of land that was the Wall and its notorious “death strip” has been transformed (as the cash-starved city has been selling off lots of land to anyone determined to develop it). Berlin is a whole new city—ready to welcome visitors.
Berlin is huge, with 3.4 million people. The city is spread out and its sights numerous, so you’ll need to be well-organized to experience it all smartly. The tourist’s Berlin can be broken into three main digestible chunks:
Eastern Berlin has the highest concentration of notable sights and colorful neighborhoods. Near the landmark Brandenburg Gate, you’ll find the Reichstag building, Pariser Platz, and poignant memorials to Hitler’s victims. From the Brandenburg Gate, the famous Unter den Linden boulevard runs eastward, passing the German History Museum and Museum Island (Pergamon Museum, Neues Museum, and Berlin Cathedral) on the way to Alexanderplatz (TV Tower). South of Unter den Linden are the delightful Gendarmenmarkt square, noteworthy Nazi sites (including the Topography of Terror), good Wall-related sights (Museum of the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie), and the Jewish Museum. Farther south is the colorful Kreuzberg neighborhood. Across the Spree River are the worth-a-wander neighborhoods of Hackescher Markt, Oranienburger Strasse, and Prenzlauer Berg (recommended hotels and a very lively restaurant/nightlife zone). The Berlin Wall Memorial is at the west edge of Prenzlauer Berg. The stretch of the Wall known as the East Side Gallery is to the east, beyond Alexanderplatz in the burgeoning district of Friedrichshain.
Central Berlin is dominated by the giant Tiergarten park, with its angel-topped Victory Column. South of the park are the German Resistance Memorial, Potsdamer Platz, and the Kulturforum museum complex, which includes the Gemäldegalerie, New National Gallery (closed until at least 2017), Musical Instruments Museum, and Philharmonic Concert Hall. To the north is the huge Hauptbahnhof (the city’s main train station), with the Natural History Museum nearby.
Western Berlin focuses on the Bahnhof Zoo train station (often marked “Zoologischer Garten” on transit maps) and the grand Kurfürstendamm boulevard, nicknamed “Ku’damm” (transportation hub, shopping, and recommended hotels). Even though the east side of the city is all the rage, big-name stores and destination restaurants keep the west side buzzing. During the Cold War, capitalists visited this “Western Sector,” possibly with a nervous side-trip beyond the Wall into the grim and foreboding East. (Cubans, Russians, Poles, and Angolans stayed behind the Wall and did their sightseeing in the East.)
With any luck, you won’t have to use Berlin’s TIs—they’re for-profit agencies working for the city’s big hotels, which colors the information they provide. TI branches, appropriately called “info-stores,” are unlikely to have the information you need (tel. 030/250-025, www.visitberlin.de). You’ll find them at the Hauptbahnhof train station (daily 8:00-22:00, by main entrance on Europaplatz), at Europa Center (Mon-Sat 10:00-20:00, closed Sun, hidden inside shopping mall ground floor at Tauentzienstrasse 9; nearby “info box” kiosk on Rankestrasse across from Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church open daily 10:00-18:00, until 16:00 Nov-March), at the Brandenburg Gate (daily 9:30-19:00, until 18:00 Nov-March), and at the TV Tower (daily 10:00-18:00, until 16:00 Nov-March, Panoramastrasse 1a).
Skip the TI’s €1 map, and instead browse the walking tour company brochures—many include nearly-as-good maps for free. Most hotels also provide free city maps. While the TI does sell the three-day Museum Pass Berlin (described next), it’s also available at major museums. If you take a walking tour, your guide is likely a better source of nightlife or shopping tips than the TI.
Museum Passes: The three-day, €24 Museum Pass Berlin is a great value and pays for itself in a hurry. It gets you into more than 50 museums, including the national museums and most of the recommended biggies (though not the German History Museum), on three consecutive days. Sights covered by the pass include the five Museum Island museums (Old National Gallery, Neues, Altes, Bode, and Pergamon), Gemäldegalerie, and the Jewish Museum Berlin, along with other more minor sights. Buy it at the TI or any participating museum. The pass generally lets you skip the line and go directly into the museum.
The €18 Museum Island Pass (Bereichskarte Museumsinsel; does not include special exhibits) covers all the venues on Museum Island and is a fine value—but for just €6 more, the three-day Museum Pass Berlin gives you triple the days and many more entries. TIs also sell the WelcomeCard, a transportation pass that includes discounts for the following recommended sights (and more): Berlin Cathedral, DDR Museum, German History Museum, Museum of the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie, Jewish Museum Berlin, and The Kennedys Museum (pass described later, under “Getting Around Berlin”).
Berlin’s grandest train station is Berlin Hauptbahnhof (a.k.a. “der Bahnhof”, abbreviated Hbf). All long-distance trains arrive here, at Europe’s biggest, mostly underground train station. This is a “transfer station”—unique for its major lines coming in at right angles—where the national train system meets the city’s S-Bahn trains.
The gigantic station can be intimidating, but it’s laid out logically on five floors (which, confusingly, can be marked in different ways). Escalators and elevators connect the main floor (Erdgeschoss, EG, a.k.a level 0); the two lower levels (Untergeschoss, UG1 and UG2, a.k.a. levels -1 and -2); and the two upper levels (Obersgeschoss, OG1 and OG2, a.k.a. levels +1 and +2). Tracks 1-8 are in the lowest underground level (UG2), while tracks 11-16 (along with the S-Bahn) are on the top floor (OG2). Shops and services are concentrated on the three middle levels (EG, OG1, and UG1). The south entrance (toward the Reichstag and downtown, with a taxi stand) is marked Washingtonplatz, while the north entrance is marked Europaplatz.
Services: On the main floor (EG), you’ll find the TI (facing the north/Europaplatz entrance, look left) and the “Rail & Fresh WC” facility (public pay toilets, near the Burger King and food court). Up one level (OG1) are a 24-hour pharmacy and lockers (directly under track 14).
Train Information and Tickets: The station has a Deutsche Bahn Reisezentrum information center on the first upper level (OG1/+1, open long hours daily). If you’re staying in western Berlin, keep in mind that the info center at the Bahnhof Zoo station is just as good and much less crowded.
EurAide is an English-speaking information desk with answers to your questions about train travel around Europe. It’s located at counter 12 inside the Reisezentrum on the first upper level (OG1/+1). It’s American-run, so communication is simple. This is an especially good place to make fast-train and couchette reservations (generally open Mon-Fri 10:30-19:00, until 20:00 May-July and Sept, check website for specific hours, closed Jan-Feb and Sat-Sun year-round; www.euraide.com).
Shopping: In addition to all those trains, the Hauptbahnhof is home to 80 shops with long hours—some locals call the station a “shopping mall with trains” (only stores selling travel provisions are open Sun). The Kaisers supermarket (UG1, follow signs for tracks 1-2) is handy for assembling a picnic for your train ride.
Getting into Town: Taxis and buses wait outside the station, but the S-Bahn is probably the best means of connecting to your destination within Berlin. It’s simple: All S-Bahn trains are on tracks 15 and 16 at the top of the station (level OG2/+2). All trains on track 15 go east, stopping at Friedrichstrasse, Hackescher Markt (with connections to Prenzlauer Berg), Alexanderplatz, and Ostbahnhof; trains on track 16 go west, toward Bahnhof Zoo and Savignyplatz. (Your train ticket or rail pass into the station covers your connecting S-Bahn ride into town; your outbound ticket includes the transfer via S-Bahn to the Hauptbahnhof.)
To reach most recommended hotels in eastern Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood, it’s fastest to take any train on track 15 two stops to Hackescher Markt, exit to Spandauer Strasse, go left, and cross the tracks to the tram stop. Here you’ll catch tram #M1 north (direction: Schillerstrasse).
To reach western Berlin, catch any train on track 16 to Savignyplatz, where you’re a five-minute walk to most recommended hotels. Savignyplatz is one stop after Bahnhof Zoo (rhymes with “toe”; a.k.a. Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten), the once-grand train hub now eclipsed by the Hauptbahnhof. Nowadays Bahnhof Zoo is an unusually sketchy S-Bahn stop; expect it to be a massive construction zone.
The Berlin Hauptbahnhof is not well-connected to the city’s U-Bahn (subway) system—yet. The station’s sole U-Bahn line—U55—goes only two stops, to the Brandenburger Tor station, and doesn’t really connect to the rest of the system. It’s part of a planned extension of the U5 line to Alexanderplatz that’s far from completion. But for transit junkies, it is an interesting ride on Europe’s shortest subway line.
For information on reaching the city center from Berlin’s airports, see “Berlin Connections” at the end of this chapter.
Medical Help: “Call a doc” is a nonprofit referral service designed for tourists (tel. 01805-321-303, phone answered 24 hours a day, www.call-a-doc.com). The US Embassy also has a list of local English-speaking doctors (tel. 030/83050, http://germany.usembassy.gov).
Museum Tips: Some major Berlin museums are closed on Monday. If you plan to see several museums, you’ll save money with the Museum Pass Berlin, which covers nearly all the city sights for three days—including everything covered by the one-day Museum Island Pass (see “Tourist Information—Museum Passes,” earlier).
Addresses: Many Berlin streets are numbered with odd and even numbers on the same side of the street, often with no connection to the other side (for example, Ku’damm #212 can be across the street from #14). To save steps, check the white street signs on curb corners; many list the street numbers covered on that side of the block.
Festivals: Berlin hosts a near-constant string of events, including the Berlinale international film festival (11 days in February, www.berlinale.de), Carnival of Cultures (four-day street festival of international music and dance culminating in a parade through Kreuzberg’s Blücherplatz on Pentecost Sunday, www.karneval-berlin.de), Classic Open Air Festival (six days of music on Gendarmenmarkt, early July, www.classicopenair.de), International Literature Festival (everything presented in its original language, 10 days in September, www.literaturfestival.com), big celebrations around the Brandenburg Gate for Unity Day (October 3), Festival of Lights (landmark buildings artistically lit for a week in mid-October, www.festival-of-lights.de), and Jazzfest Berlin (four days in early November, www.berlinerfestspiele.de).
Cold War Terminology: What Americans called “East Germany” was technically the German Democratic Republic—the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or DDR (pronounced day-day-AIR). You’ll still see those initials around what was once East Germany. The name for what was “West Germany”—the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or BRD)—is now the name shared by all of Germany.
Laundry: Berlin has several self-service launderettes with long hours (wash and dry-€4-9/load). Near my recommended hotels in Prenzlauer Berg, try Waschsalon 115 (daily 6:00-22:00, Wi-Fi, Torstrasse 115, around corner from recommended Circus hostel) or Eco-Express Waschsalon (daily 6:00-22:00, handy pizzeria next door, Danziger Strasse 7). The Schnell & Sauber Waschcenter chain has a location in Prenzlauer Berg (daily 6:00-23:00, Oderberger Strasse 1).
Local Publications: Berlin Programm is a comprehensive German-language monthly, especially strong in high culture, that lists upcoming events and museum hours (€2.20, www.berlin-programm.de). Exberliner Magazine, an English monthly (published mostly by expat Brits who love to poke fun at expat Americans), gives a fascinating insider’s look at this fast-changing city (€3 but often given away at theaters or on the street, www.exberliner.com).
Shell Games: Believe it or not, there are still enough idiots on the street to keep the con men with their shell games in business. Don’t be foolish enough to engage with any gambling on the street.
Updates to This Book: For the latest, check www.ricksteves.com/update.
The city is vast. Berlin’s sights spread far and wide. Right from the start, commit yourself to the city’s fine public-transit system.
Berlin’s consolidated transit system uses the same ticket for its many modes of transportation: U-Bahn (Untergrund-Bahn, Berlin’s subway), S-Bahn (Stadtschnellbahn, or “fast urban train,” mostly aboveground), Strassenbahn (tram), and bus. For all types of transit, there are three lettered zones (A, B, and C). Most of your sightseeing will be in zones A and B (the city proper)—but you’ll need to buy a ticket that also covers zone C if you’re going to Potsdam, Sachsenhausen, Schönefeld airport, or other outlying areas.
Berlin’s public transit is operated by BVG (except the S-Bahn, which is run by the Deutsche Bahn). Timetables and the latest prices are available on the helpful BVG website (www.bvg.de). Get and use the excellent Discover Berlin by Train and Bus map-guide published by BVG (at subway ticket windows).
•The €2.70 basic single ticket (Einzelfahrschein) covers two hours of travel in one direction. It’s easy to make this ticket stretch to cover several rides...as long as they’re in the same direction.
•The €1.60 short-ride ticket (Kurzstrecke Fahrschein) covers a single ride of up to six bus/tram stops or three subway stations (one transfer allowed on subway). You can save a little bit on short-ride tickets by buying them in groups of four (€5.60).
•The €9 four-trip ticket (4-Fahrten-Karte) is the same as four basic single tickets at a small discount.
•The day pass (Tageskarte) is good until 3:00 the morning after you buy it (€6.90 for zones AB, €7.40 for zones ABC). For longer stays, consider a seven-day pass (Sieben-Tage-Karte; €29.50 for zones AB, €36.50 for zones ABC), or the WelcomeCard (options from 2 to 6 days; described below). The Kleingruppenkarte lets groups of up to five travel all day (€16.90 for zones AB, €17.40 for zones ABC).
•If you’ve already bought a ticket for zones A and B, and later decide that you want to go to zone C (such as to Potsdam), you can buy an “extension ticket” (Anschlussfahrschein) for €1.60 per ride in that zone.
•If you plan to cover a lot of ground using public transportation during a two- or three-day visit, the WelcomeCard is usually the best deal (available at TIs; www.visitberlin.de/welcomecard). It covers all public transportation and gives you up to 50 percent discounts on lots of minor and a few major museums (including Checkpoint Charlie), sightseeing tours (including 25 percent off the recommended Original Berlin Walks), and music and theater events. It’s especially smart for families, as each adult card also covers up to three kids under age 15. The Berlin-only card covers transit zones AB (€19.50/48 hours, €27.50/72 hours, also 4-, 5-, and 6-day options). For multiple trips beyond the city center, there’s a Berlin-with-Potsdam card (zones ABC, €21.50/48 hours, €29.50/72 hours, also 4-, 5-, and 6-day options). If you’re a museum junkie, consider the WelcomeCard+Museumsinsel (€42/72 hours), which combines travel in zones A and B with unlimited access to the five museums on Museum Island (€44/72 hours for the ABC version).
Buying Tickets: You can buy U-Bahn/S-Bahn tickets from machines at stations. (They are also sold at BVG pavilions at train stations and at the TI, from machines on board trams, and on buses from drivers, who’ll give change.) Erwachsener means “adult”—anyone age 14 or older. Don’t be afraid of the automated machines: First select the type of ticket you want, then load the coins or paper bills. (Coins work better, so keep some handy.)
Boarding Transit: As you board the bus or tram, or enter the subway, punch your ticket in a clock machine to validate it (or risk a €60 fine; for passes, stamp it only the first time you ride). Be sure to travel with a valid ticket. Tickets are checked frequently, often by plainclothes inspectors. You may be asked to show your ticket when boarding the bus (technically that’s required), though most drivers skip this.
Transit Tips: The S-Bahn crosstown express is a river of public transit through the heart of the city, in which many lines converge on one basic highway. Get used to this, and you’ll leap within a few minutes between key locations: Savignyplatz (hotels in western Berlin), Bahnhof Zoo (Ku’damm, bus #100), Hauptbahnhof (all major trains in and out of Berlin), Friedrichstrasse (a short walk north of the heart of Unter den Linden; this station has the interesting Palace of Tears exhibit), Hackescher Markt (Museum Island, restaurants, nightlife, connection to Prenzlauer Berg hotels and eateries), and Alexanderplatz (eastern end of Unter den Linden).
Sections of the U-Bahn or S-Bahn sometimes close temporarily for repairs. In this situation, a bus route often replaces the train (Ersatzverkehr, or “replacement transportation”; zwischen means “between”).
Within Berlin, Eurail passes are good only on S-Bahn connections from the train station when you arrive and to the station when you depart.
Cabs are easy to flag down, and taxi stands are common. A typical ride within town costs €8-10, and a crosstown trip (for example, Savignyplatz to Alexanderplatz) will run about €15. Tariff 1 is for a Kurzstrecke ticket (see below). All other rides are tariff 2 (€3.40 drop plus €1.80/km for the first 7 kilometers, then €1.28/km after that). If possible, use cash—paying with a credit card comes with a hefty surcharge (about €4, regardless of the fare).
Money-Saving Taxi Tip: For any ride of less than two kilometers (about a mile), you can save several euros if you take advantage of the Kurzstrecke (short-stretch) rate. To get this rate, it’s important that you flag the cab down on the street—not at or even near a taxi stand. You must ask for the Kurzstrecke rate as soon as you hop in: Confidently say “Kurzstrecke, bitte” (KOORTS-shtreh-keh, BIT-teh), and your driver will grumble and flip the meter to a fixed €4 rate (for a ride that would otherwise cost €7).
Flat Berlin is a very bike-friendly city, but be careful—Berlin’s motorists don’t brake for bicyclists (and bicyclists don’t brake for pedestrians). Fortunately, some roads and sidewalks have special red-painted bike lanes. Don’t ride on the regular sidewalk—it’s verboten (though locals do it all the time). Better yet, to get out of the city on two wheels, rent a bike, take it on the subway (requires extra €1.80 ticket) to the pleasant Potsdam/Wannsee parkland area west of town, then ride through forests and along skinny lakes to the vast Grünewald park, then back into the city. (During the Cold War, Grünewald was the Wessies’ playground, while Ossies communed with nature at the Müggelsee, east of town.) Bike shops can suggest a specific route.
Fat Tire Bikes rents good bikes at two handy locations—East (at the base of the TV Tower near Alexanderplatz) and West (at Bahnhof Zoo—leaving the station onto Hardenbergplatz, turn left and walk 100 yards to the big bike sign). Both locations have the same hours and rates (€14/day, cheaper rate for two or more days, trekking and e-bikes available, free luggage storage, daily May-Aug 9:30-20:00, March-April and Sept-Oct 9:30-18:00, shorter hours or by appointment only Nov-Feb, leave ID, tel. 030/2404-7991, www.berlinbikerental.com).
In eastern Berlin, Take a Bike—near the Friedrichstrasse S-Bahn station—is owned by a lovely Dutch-German couple who know a lot about bikes and have a huge inventory (3-gear bikes: €8/4 hours, €12.50/day, €19/2 days, slightly cheaper for longer rentals, more for better bikes, includes helmets, daily 9:30-19:00, Neustädtische Kirchstrasse 8, tel. 030/2065-4730, www.takeabike.de). To find it, leave the S-Bahn station via the Friedrichstrasse exit, turn right, go through a triangle-shaped square, and hang a left on Neustädtische Kirchstrasse.
All around town, simple Rent a Bike stands are outside countless shops, restaurants, and hotels. Most charge €10 to €12 a day, and are super-convenient, given their ubiquitous availability—but these bikes don’t come with the reliable quality, advice, helmets, or maps commonly offered by full-service rental shops.
Several companies offer the same routine: a circuit of the city with unlimited hop-on, hop-off privileges all day for about €20 (about 15 stops at the city’s major tourist spots—Potsdamer Platz, Museum Island, Brandenburg Gate, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, and so on). For specifics, look for brochures in your hotel lobby or at the TI. Buses come with cursory narration in English and German by a live, sometimes tired guide or a boring recorded commentary. In season, buses run at least four times per hour. They are great for photography—and Berlin really lends itself to this kind of bus-tour orientation.
Before handing over the money, consider following my self-guided “City Bus #100 tour” instead (below), which costs only the price of a transit ticket. If you do opt for the commercial route, go with a live guide rather than the recorded spiel (buses generally run April-Oct daily 10:00-18:00, departures every 10 minutes, last bus leaves all stops at around 16:00, 2-hour loop; Nov-March 2/hour and last departure at 15:00).
This company offers a long list of bus tours (including hop-on, hop-off) in and around Berlin; their 2.5-hour “City Circle Yellow” tour is a good introduction. You can hop on and off at any of 18 stops, or simply stay on for the full tour (1 day-€20, 2 days-€24, 6/hour April-Oct daily 10:00-18:00, Fri-Sat until 19:00; Nov-March daily until 17:00; recorded English commentary, departs from Ku’damm 216, buy ticket on bus or from S-Bahn machines and ticket windows, tel. 030/880-4190, www.berlinerstadtrundfahrten.de).
For do-it-yourselfers, Berlin’s city bus #100 is a cheap, quick, workable alternative to the commercial hop-on, hop-off bus tours—and you can follow along with my self-guided bus tour.
Berlin’s fascinating and complex history can be challenging to appreciate on your own, making the city an ideal place to explore with a walking tour. Equal parts historian and entertainer, a good Berlin tour guide makes the city’s dynamic story come to life.
Unlike many other European countries, Germany has no regulations controlling who can give city tours. This can make guide quality hit-or-miss, ranging from brilliant history buffs who’ve lived in Berlin for years while pursuing their PhDs, to new arrivals who memorize a script and start leading tours after being in town for just a couple of weeks. To improve your odds of landing a great guide, use one of the companies I recommend in this section.
Most outfits offer walks that are variations on the same themes: general introductory walk, Third Reich walk (Hitler and Nazi sites), and day trips to Potsdam and the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial. Most tours cost about €12-15 and last about three to four hours (longer for the side-trips to Potsdam and Sachsenhausen); public-transit tickets and entrances to sights are extra. For details—including prices and specific schedules—see each company’s website or look for brochures in town (widely available at TIs, hotel reception desks, and many cafés and shops).
Specializing in longer, more in-depth walks that touch on the entire span of Berlin’s past, this company was started by the late, great Terry Brewer, who once worked for the British diplomatic service in East Berlin. Terry left the company to his guides, a group of historians who get very excited about Berlin. Their city tours are intimate, relaxed, and can flex with your interests. Their Best of Berlin introductory tour, billed at six hours, can last for eight (daily at 10:30). They also do a shorter 3.5-hour tour (free, tip expected, daily at 13:00) and an all-day Potsdam tour (Wed and Sat, May-Oct). All tours depart from Bandy Brooks ice cream shop at the Friedrichstrasse S-Bahn station (mobile 0177-388-1537, www.brewersberlintours.com).
This well-regarded company runs the full gamut of itineraries: introductory walk (daily), Third Reich, Cold War, Jewish Berlin, alternative culture, Sachsenhausen, and Potsdam, as well as pub crawls and a day trip to Dresden. Their tours have two meeting points: in the West at the McDonald’s across from Bahnhof Zoo, and in the East at AM to PM Bar at the Hackescher Markt S-Bahn station (tel. 030/692-3149, www.insidertour.com).
Their flagship introductory walk, Discover Berlin, offers a good overview in four hours (daily year-round, meet at 10:00 at Bahnhof Zoo, April-Oct also daily at 13:30). They also offer a Third Reich walking tour; themed walks on topics such as Jewish Life in Berlin, Cold War Berlin, and Queer Berlin; and tours to Potsdam, Sachsenhausen, and Wittenberg. Readers of this book get a €1 discount per tour in 2016. Tours depart from the taxi stand in front of the Bahnhof Zoo train station or opposite the Hackescher Markt S-Bahn station, outside the Weihenstephaner restaurant (tour info: tel. 030/301-9194, www.berlinwalks.de).
Much of Berlin’s history lies beneath the surface, and this group has an exclusive agreement with the city to explore and research what is hidden underground. Their one-of-a-kind Dark Worlds tour takes you into a WWII air-raid bunker (Thu-Sun at 11:00 and Mon at 11:00 and 13:00). The “From Flak Towers to Mountains of Debris” tour enters the Humboldthain air defense tower (April-Oct Thu-Tue at 11:00). The “Subways and Bunkers in the Cold War” tour visits a fully functional nuclear emergency bunker in former West Berlin (Thu-Sun at 13:00). Additional tour times and days are added in summer; check online (most tours cost €11 and last about 1.5 hours). Meet in the hall of the Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn/S-Bahn station—follow signs to the Humboldthain/Brunnenstrasse exit, and walk up the stairs to their office (tel. 030/4991-0517, www.berliner-unterwelten.de).
Specializing in cutting-edge street culture and art, this company emphasizes the bohemian chic that flavors the city’s ever-changing urban scene. Their basic three-hour tour (daily at 11:00, 13:00, and 15:00) is tip-based; other tours cost €12-20 (all tours meet at Starbucks on Alexanderplatz under the TV Tower, mobile 0162-819-8264, www.alternativeberlin.com).
You’ll see companies advertising supposedly “free” introductory tours all over town. Designed for and popular with students (free is good), it’s a business model that has spread across Europe: English-speaking students (often Aussies and Americans) deliver a memorized script before a huge crowd lured in by the promise of a free tour. Tour leaders expect to be “tipped in paper” (€5 minimum per person is encouraged). While the guides can be highly entertaining, the better ones typically move on to more serious tour companies before long. These tours are fine for poor students with little interest in real history. But as with many things, when it comes to walking tours, you get what you pay for.
The “free” tour companies also offer pub crawls that are wildly popular with visiting college students.
Berlin guides are generally independent contractors who work with the various tour companies (such as those listed here). Many guides are Americans who came to town as students and history buffs, fell in love with Berlin, and now earn their living sharing their city. Some lead private tours on their own (generally charging around €50-60/hour or €200-300/day, confirm when booking). The following guides are all good: Nick Jackson (an archaeologist and historian who makes museums come to life, mobile 0171-537-8768, www.jacksonsberlintours.com, info@jacksonsberlintours.com, nick.jackson@berlin.de); Lee Evans (makes 20th-century Germany a thriller, mobile 0177-423-5307, lee.evans@berlin.de); Bernhard Schlegelmilch (an enthusiastic historian who grew up behind the Wall, mobile 0176-6422-9119, www.steubentoursberlin.com, info@steubentoursberlin.com), and Holger Zimmer (a journalist and cultural connoisseur who also guides my groups, mobile 0163-345-4427, explore@berlin.de).
Choose among five different tours, which run (except where noted) from April through October (most €28, 4-6 hours, 6-10 miles): City Tour (April-Sept daily at 10:00, 11:00, and 16:00; Oct daily at 10:00 and 11:00; March and Nov daily at 11:00; Dec-Feb Wed and Sat at 11:00), Berlin Wall Tour (Mon and Thu-Sun at 10:30), Third Reich Tour (Wed and Fri-Sun at 10:30), “Raw” Tour (countercultural, creative aspects of contemporary Berlin, Tue, Fri, and Sun at 10:30), and Gardens and Palaces of Potsdam Tour (€46, Wed and Fri-Sun at 9:45). For any tour, meet at the TV Tower at Alexanderplatz (reserve ahead except for City Tour, tel. 030/2404-7991, www.fattirebiketours.com).
Several boat companies offer one-hour, €13 trips up and down the river. In one relaxing hour, you’ll listen to excellent English audioguides, see lots of wonderful new government-commissioned architecture, and enjoy the lively park action fronting the river. Boats leave from various docks that cluster near the bridge at the Berlin Cathedral (just off Unter den Linden). For better views, I’d go for a two-story boat with open-deck seating. I enjoyed the Historical Sightseeing Cruise from Stern und Kreisschiffahrt (mid-March-Nov daily 10:00-19:00, leaves from Nikolaiviertel Dock—cross bridge from Berlin Cathedral toward Alexanderplatz and look right, tel. 030/536-3600, www.sternundkreis.de). Confirm that the boat you choose comes with English commentary.
Andy Steves (my son) runs Weekend Student Adventures (WSA Europe), offering three-day and longer guided and unguided packages—including accommodations, sightseeing, and unique local experiences—for student travelers in 12 top European cities, including Berlin (guided trips from €199, see www.wsaeurope.com).
This two-mile self-guided walk, worth ▲▲▲, starts in front of the Reichstag, takes you under the Brandenburg Gate and down Unter den Linden, and finishes on Alexanderplatz, near the TV Tower. I describe minor sights along the way, and also point out major ones that you’ll want to visit later or by taking a break from the walk (find their details later in this chapter, under “Sights in Eastern Berlin”). If you have just one day in Berlin, or want a good orientation to the city, simply follow this walk (two-three hours at a brisk pace, not counting museum visits). By the end, you’ll have seen the core of Berlin and its most important sights.
If you have more time and want to use this walk as a spine for your sightseeing, entering sights and museums as you go, consider doing Part 1 and Part 2 on different days. Part 1 goes from the Reichstag and takes you partway down Unter den Linden, with stops at the Brandenburg Gate, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and Friedrichstrasse, the glitzy shopping street. Part 2 continues down Unter den Linden, from Bebelplatz to Alexanderplatz, and features Museum Island and the Spree River, the Berlin Cathedral, and the iconic TV Tower.
Download my free Berlin Walk audio tour, which narrates the route and sights described next.
During the Cold War, the Reichstag stood just inside the West Berlin side of the Wall. Even though it’s been more than 25 years since the Wall came down, you may still feel a slight tingle down your spine as you walk across the former death strip, through the once verboten Brandenburg Gate, and into the former communist east.
• Start your walk directly in front of the Reichstag building, at the big, grassy park called...
Platz der RepublikStand about 100 yards in front of the grand Reichstag building and spin left to survey your surroundings. At the Reichstag U-Bahn stop is a big federal building overlooking the Spree River. The huge main train station (Hauptbahnhof) is in the distance (see the tower marked DB, for Deutsche Bahn—the German rail company). Farther left is the mammoth white concrete-and-glass Chancellery, nicknamed the “washing machine” by Berliners for its hygienic, spin-cycle appearance. It’s the office of Germany’s most powerful person, the chancellor (currently Angela Merkel). To remind the chancellor whom he or she works for, Germany’s Reichstag (housing the parliament) is about six feet taller than the Chancellery.
Beyond the Chancellery is the Spree River. When kings ruled Prussia, government buildings crowded right up to its banks. But today, the riverscape is a people-friendly zone (we’ll see it later on this walk).
• Dominating the Platz der Republik is a giant domed building, the...
ReichstagThe parliament building—the heart of German democracy and worth ▲▲▲—has a short but complicated and emotional history. When it was inaugurated in the 1890s, the last emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, disdainfully called it the “chatting home for monkeys” (Reichsaffenhaus). It was placed outside the city’s old walls—far from the center of real power, the imperial palace. But it was from the Reichstag that the German Republic was proclaimed in 1918. Look above the door, surrounded by stone patches from WWII bomb damage, to see the motto and promise: Dem Deutschen Volke (“To the German People”).
In 1933, this symbol of democracy nearly burned down. The Nazis—whose influence on the German political scene was on the rise—blamed a communist plot. A Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was eventually convicted and guillotined for the crime. Others believed that Hitler himself planned the fire, using it as a handy excuse to frame the communists and grab power. Even though Van der Lubbe was posthumously pardoned by the German government in 2008, most modern historians concede that he most likely was guilty, and had acted alone—the timing was just incredibly fortuitous for the Nazis, who shrewdly used his deed to advance their cause.
The Reichstag was hardly used from 1933 to 1999. Despite the fact that the building had lost its symbolic value, Stalin ordered his troops to take the Reichstag from the Nazis no later than May 1, 1945 (the date of the workers’ May Day parade in Moscow). More than 1,500 Nazi soldiers made their last stand here—extending World War II by two days. On April 30, after fierce fighting on its rooftop, the Reichstag fell to the Red Army.
For the building’s 101st birthday in 1995, the artist-partners Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the entire thing in silvery gold cloth. It was then wrapped again—in scaffolding—and rebuilt by British architect Lord Norman Foster into the new parliamentary home of the Bundestag (Germany’s lower house, similar to the US House of Representatives). In 1999, the German parliament convened here for the first time in 66 years. To many Germans, the proud resurrection of the Reichstag symbolizes the end of a terrible chapter in their country’s history.
The glass cupola rises 155 feet above the ground. Its two sloped ramps spiral 755 feet to the top for a grand view. Inside the dome, a cone of 360 mirrors reflects natural light into the legislative chamber below. Illuminated from inside after dark, this gives Berlin a memorable nightlight. The environmentally friendly cone—with an opening at the top—also helps with air circulation, expelling stale air from the legislative chamber (no joke) and pulling in fresh, cool air.
Visitors with advance reservations can climb the spiral ramp up into the cupola. If you haven’t booked a slot, you can cross the street to the white booth to check available entry times.
• Face the Reichstag and walk to the right. Near the road in front of the building, enmeshed in all the security apparatus and crowds, is a memorial of slate stones embedded in the ground.
Memorial to Politicians Who Opposed HitlerThis row of slabs, which looks like a fancy slate bicycle rack, is a memorial to the 96 members of the Reichstag who were persecuted and murdered because their politics didn’t agree with Chancellor Hitler’s. They were part of the Weimar Republic, the weak and ill-fated attempt at post-WWI democracy in Germany. These were the people who could have stopped Hitler...so they became his first victims. Each slate slab memorializes one man—his name, party (mostly KPD—Communists, and SPD—Social Democrats), and the date and location of his death—generally in a concentration camp (indicated by “KZ” on the slabs). They are honored here, in front of the building in which they worked.
• Walk along the side of the Reichstag, on busy Scheidemannstrasse, toward the rear of the building. At the intersection with Ebertstrasse, cross to the right (toward the park). Along a railing is a small memorial of white crosses. This is the...
Berlin Wall Victims MemorialThis monument commemorates some of the East Berliners who died trying to cross the Wall. Many of them perished within months of the Wall’s construction on August 13, 1961. Most died trying to swim the Spree River to freedom. This monument used to stand right on the Berlin Wall behind the Reichstag. The last person killed while trying to escape was 20-year-old Chris Gueffroy, who was shot through the heart in no-man’s land nine months before the Wall fell in 1989.
• Continue along Ebertstrasse for a few more steps and turn into the peaceful lane on the right (into leafy Tiergarten park). Within a short distance, on your right, is the...
Monument to the Murdered Sinti and Roma (Gypsies) of EuropeUnveiled in 2012, this memorial remembers the roughly 500,000 Sinti and Roma victims of the Holocaust. “Sinti” and “Roma” (the main tribes and politically correct terms for the group more commonly called “Gypsies”) were as persecuted by the Nazis as were the Jews. And they lost the same percentage of their population to Hitler. The opaque glass wall, with a timeline in English and German, traces the Nazi abuse and atrocities.
Enter through the rusty steel portal. On the other side is a circular reflecting pool surrounded by stone slabs, some containing the names of the death camps where hundreds of thousands of Sinti and Roma perished. In the water along the rim of the pool is the heart-wrenching poem “Auschwitz,” by composer and writer Santino Spinelli, an Italian Roma. Dissonant music evoking the tragedy of the Sinti and Roma genocide adds to the atmosphere.
• Retrace your steps to Ebertstrasse and turn right, toward the busy intersection dominated by the imposing Brandenburg Gate. Take this chance to get oriented. Behind you, as you face the Brandenburg Gate, is Tiergarten park, its center marked by the landmark Victory Column.
Now face the Brandenburg Gate. It stands at one end of Unter den Linden, the Champs-Elysées of Berlin. In the distance, the red-and-white spire of the TV Tower marks the end of this walk.
Cross the street toward the gate, and notice the double row of cobblestones beneath your feet—it goes about 25 miles around the city, marking where the Wall used to stand. Then walk under the gate that, for a sad generation, was part of a wall that divided this city.
Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor)The historic ▲▲▲ Brandenburg Gate (1791) was the grandest—and is the last survivor—of 14 gates in Berlin’s old city wall (this one led to the neighboring city of Brandenburg). The gate was the symbol of Prussian Berlin—and later the symbol of a divided Berlin. It’s crowned by a majestic four-horse chariot, with the Goddess of Peace at the reins. Napoleon took this statue to the Louvre in Paris in 1806. After the Prussians defeated Napoleon and got it back (1813), she was renamed the Goddess of Victory.
The gate sat unused, part of a sad circle dance called the Berlin Wall, for more than 25 years. Now postcards all over town show the ecstatic day—November 9, 1989—when the world rejoiced at the sight of happy Berliners jamming the gate like flowers on a parade float. Pause a minute and think about struggles for freedom—past and present. (There’s actually a special room built into the gate for this purpose—see the sidebar.) There’s also a TI within the gate. Around the gate, information boards show how this area changed throughout the 20th century.
The gate sits on a major boulevard running east to west through Berlin. The western segment, called Strasse des 17 Juni (named for a workers’ uprising against the DDR government on June 17, 1953), stretches for four miles from the Brandenburg Gate, through the Tiergarten, past the Victory Column, to the Olympic Stadium. But we’ll follow this city axis in the opposite direction—east, along Unter den Linden into the core of old imperial Berlin, and past the site where the palace of the Hohenzollern family, rulers of Prussia and then Germany, once stood. The royal palace is a phantom sight, long gone, but its occupants were responsible for just about all you’ll see.
• Pass all the way through the gate and stand in the middle of...
Pariser Platz“Parisian Square,” so named after the Prussians defeated Napoleon in 1813, was once filled with important government buildings—all bombed to smithereens in World War II. For decades, it was an unrecognizable, deserted no-man’s-land—cut off from both East and West by the Wall. Banks, hotels, and embassies have now reclaimed their original places on the square (worth ▲)—with a few additions, including a palace of coffee, Starbucks. The winners of World War II enjoy this prime real estate: The American, French, British, and Russian embassies are all on or near this square.
As you face the gate, to your right is the French Embassy, and to your left is the 
US Embassy, which reopened in its historic pre-WWII location in 2008. (While Germany was divided, the embassy relocated to Bonn, with only a “mission” in West Berlin, as the US refused to officially recognize Berlin as the capital of East Germany.) For safety’s sake, Uncle Sam wanted more of a security zone around the building, but the Germans wanted to keep Pariser Platz a welcoming people zone. The compromise: Extra security was built into the structure. Easy-on-the-eyes barriers keep potential car bombs at a distance, and the front door is on the side farthest from the Brandenburg Gate.
Turn your back to the gate. On the right, jutting into the square, is the ritzy Hotel Adlon, long called home by visiting stars and VIPs. In its heyday, it hosted such notables as Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, and Greta Garbo. It was the setting for Garbo’s most famous line, “I vant to be alone,” uttered in the film Grand Hotel. Damaged by the Russians just after World War II, the original hotel was closed when the Wall went up in 1961 and later demolished. Today’s grand Adlon was rebuilt in 1997. It was here that Michael Jackson shocked millions by dangling his infant son over a balcony railing.
• Between the hotel and the US Embassy are two buildings worth a quick visit: the DZ Bank building and the glassy Academy of Arts. We’ll enter both, then leave Pariser Platz through the Academy of Arts.
DZ Bank Building: This building’s architect, Frank Gehry, is famous for Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, Prague’s Dancing House, Seattle’s Experience Music Project, Chicago’s Pritzker Pavilion, and Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall. Gehry fans might be surprised at the bank building’s low profile. Structures on Pariser Platz are designed so as not to draw attention away from the Brandenburg Gate. But to get your fix of wild and colorful Gehry, step into the lobby. Built in 2001 as an office complex and conference center, its undulating interior is like a big, slithery fish. Gehry explained, “The form of the fish is the best example of movement. I try to capture this movement in my buildings.”
• Leaving the DZ Bank, turn right and head into the next building, the...
Academy of Arts (Akademie der Künste): The glassy arcade is open daily (WC in basement, café serves light meals). Just past the café is the office where Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect, planned the rebuilding of postwar Berlin into “Welthauptstadt Germania”—the grandiose “world capital” of Nazi Europe. Pass through the glass door to see Speer’s favorite statue, Prometheus Bound (c. 1900). This is the kind of art that turned Hitler on: a strong, soldierly, vital man, enduring hardship for a greater cause. Anticipating the bombing of Berlin, Speer had the statue bricked up in the basement here where it lay, undiscovered, until 1995.
This building provides a handy and interesting passage to the Holocaust memorial on the other side.
• Exit the building out the back. Across the street, to the right, stretches the vast...
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas)Completed in 2005, this Holocaust memorial (worth ▲▲) consists of 2,711 gravestone-like pillars called “stelae.” Designed by Jewish-American architect Peter Eisenman, it was Germany’s first formal, government-sponsored Holocaust memorial. Using the word “murdered” in the title was intentional and a big deal. Germany, as a nation, was officially admitting to a crime.
Cost and Hours: The memorial is free and always open. The information center is open Tue-Sun 10:00-20:00, Oct-March until 19:00, closed Mon year-round; last entry 45 minutes before closing, entry involves brief security screening, S-Bahn: Brandenburger Tor or Potsdamer Platz, tel. 030/2639-4336, www.stiftung-denkmal.de. A €4 audioguide augments the experience.
Visiting the Memorial: The pillars, made of hollow concrete, stand in a gently sunken area, which can be entered from any side. The number of pillars isn’t symbolic of anything; it’s simply how many fit on the provided land. The pillars are all about the same size, but of differing heights. The memorial’s location—where the Wall once stood—is coincidental. Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels’ bunker was discovered during the work and left buried under the northeast corner of the memorial.
Once you enter the memorial, notice that people seem to appear and disappear between the columns, and that no matter where you are, the exit always seems to be up. The memorial is thoughtfully lit at night and guarded.
The monument was criticized for focusing on just one of the groups targeted by the Nazis, but the German government has now erected memorials to other victims—such as the Roma/Sinti memorial we just visited, and a memorial to the regime’s homosexual victims, also nearby. It’s also been criticized because there’s nothing intrinsically Jewish about it. Some were struck that there’s no central gathering point or place for a ceremony. Like death, you enter it alone.
There is no one intended interpretation. Is it a symbolic cemetery, or an intentionally disorienting labyrinth? It’s up to the visitor to derive the meaning, while pondering this horrible chapter in human history.
Memorial Information Center: The pondering takes place under the sky. For the learning, go under the field of concrete pillars to the state-of-the-art information center. Inside, an excellent and thought-provoking exhibit (well-explained in English) studies the Nazi system of extermination and personalizes the plight of victims; there’s also space for silent reflection. In the first hall, exhibits trace the historical context of the Nazi and WWII era, while six portraits—representing the six million Jewish victims—look out on visitors. The next room has glowing boxes in the floor containing diaries, letters, and final farewells penned by Holocaust victims. A third room presents case studies of 15 Jewish families from around Europe, to more fully convey the European Jewish experience. Behind these 15 stories are millions more tales of despair, tragedy, and survival. In the most somber part of the center, a continually running soundtrack reads the names and brief biographies of Holocaust victims. The final room of the exhibit documents some 220 different places of genocide. You’ll also find exhibits about other Holocaust monuments and memorials, a searchable database of victims, and a video archive of interviews with survivors.
• Wander through the gray pillars, but eventually emerge on the corner with the Information Center. Cross Hannah-Arendt-Strasse and go a half block farther. Walk alongside the rough parking lot (on the left side of street) to the info plaque over the...
Site of Hitler’s BunkerYou’re standing atop the buried remains of the Führerbunker. In early 1945, as Allied armies advanced on Berlin and Nazi Germany lay in ruins, Hitler and his staff retreated to a bunker complex behind the former Reich Chancellery. He stayed there for two months. It was here, as the Soviet army tightened its noose on the capital, that Hitler and Eva Braun, his wife of less than 48 hours, committed suicide on April 30, 1945. A week later, the war in Europe was over. The info board presents a detailed cutaway illustrating the bunker complex plus a timeline tracing its history and ultimate fate (the roof was removed and the bunker filled with dirt, then covered over).
• From here, you can visit the important but stark Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted Under the National Socialist Regime, or you can continue the walk. To do either, first head back to Hannah-Arendt-Strasse.
To see the memorial (it’s a bit of a detour), go left one block at Hannah-Arendt-Strasse, cross the street, and head down a path into Tiergarten park. There, look for a large, dark gray concrete box. Through a small window you can watch a film loop of same-sex couples kissing—a reminder that life and love are precious.
To rejoin the walk, turn right on Hannah-Arendt-Strasse, go one block, then head left up Wilhelmstrasse. Because Wilhelmstrasse was a main street of the German government during WWII, it was obliterated by bombs, and all its buildings are new today. The pedestrianized part of the street is home to the British Embassy. The fun, purple color of its wall is the colors of the Union Jack mixed together.
Back on Unter den Linden, head to the median, in front of Hotel Adlon, and take a long look down...
Unter den LindenIn the good old days, this ▲▲ street was one of Europe’s grand boulevards. In the 15th century, it was a carriageway leading from the palace to the hunting grounds (today’s big Tiergarten). In the 17th century, Hohenzollern princes and princesses moved in and built their palaces here so they could be near the Prussian king. It is divided, roughly at Friedrichstrasse, into a business section, which stretches toward the Brandenburg Gate, and a cultural section, which spreads out toward Alexanderplatz. Frederick the Great wanted to have culture, mainly the opera and the university, closer to his palace and to keep business (read: banks) farther away, near the city walls.
Named centuries ago for its thousands of linden trees, this was the most elegant street of Prussian Berlin before Hitler’s time, and the main drag of East Berlin after his reign. Hitler replaced the venerable trees—many 250 years old—with Nazi flags. Popular discontent drove him to replant the trees. Later, Unter den Linden deteriorated into a depressing Cold War cul-de-sac, but it has long since regained its strolling café ambience.
• In front of Hotel Adlon is the Brandenburger Tor S-Bahn station. Cover a bit of Unter den Linden underground by climbing down its steps and walking along the platform.
Ghost Subway Station: The Brandenburger Tor S-Bahn station is one of Berlin’s former ghost subway stations. During the Cold War, most underground train tunnels were simply sealed at the border. But a few Western lines looped through the East and then back into the West. To make a little hard Western cash, the Eastern government rented the use of these tracks to the West. For 28 years, as Western trains passed through otherwise blocked-off stations, passengers saw only eerie East German guards and lots of cobwebs. Within days of the fall of the Wall, these stations reopened (one woman who’d left her purse behind in 1961 got a call from the lost-and-found office—it was still there). Today they are a time warp, looking much as they did when built in 1931, with dreary old green tiles and original signage on ticket kiosks.
• Walk along the track (the walls are lined with historic photos of the Reichstag through the ages) and exit on the other side, to the right. You’ll pop out at the Russian Embassy’s front yard.
Russian Embassy: This was the first big postwar building project in East Berlin. It’s in the powerful, simplified Neoclassical style that Stalin liked. While not as important now as it was a few years ago, it’s as immense as ever. It flies the Russian white, blue, and red. On the median out front, you may well see protesters speaking out against Russia’s latest questionable action—or, just as likely, in defense of it. Find the hammer-and-sickle motif decorating the window frames—a reminder of the days when Russia was the USSR.
• At the next intersection (Glinkastrasse), cross to the other side of Unter den Linden. At #40 is the...
Berlin Story Bookstore: Berlin Story is two shops side by side (on the left it’s mainly Cold War souvenirs; on the right, the bookstore). The bookshop has just about the best range anywhere of English-language titles on Berlin (Mon-Sat 10:00-19:00, Sun until 18:00). They also run a little museum at a separate location.
• A few steps farther down is the...
Intersection of Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse: This is perhaps the most central crossroads in Berlin. And for several years more, it will be a mess as Berlin builds a new connection in its already extensive subway system. All over Berlin, you’ll see big, colorful water pipes running aboveground. Wherever there are large construction projects, streets are laced with these drainage pipes. Berlin’s high water table means that any new basement comes with lots of pumping out.
Looking at the jaunty DDR-style pedestrian lights at this intersection is a reminder that very little of the old East survives. Construction has been a theme since the Wall came down. The West lost no time in consuming the East; consequently, some have felt a wave of Ost-algia for the old days of East Berlin. At election time, a surprising number of formerly East Berlin voters still opt for the extreme left party, which has ties to the bygone Communist Party—although the East-West divide is no longer at the forefront of most voters’ minds.
One symbol of that communist era has been given a reprieve: the DDR-style pedestrian lights you’ll see along Unter den Linden (and throughout much of the former East Berlin). The perky red and green men—called Ampelmännchen—were recently threatened with replacement by ordinary signs. But, after a 10-year court battle, the wildly popular DDR signals were kept after all.
When the little green Ampelmännchen says you can go, cross the construction zone that has taken over this stretch of Unter den Linden, and note the Ampelmann souvenir store across the street.
Before continuing down Unter den Linden, look farther down Friedrichstrasse. Before the war, this zone was the heart of Berlin. In the 1920s, Berlin was famous for its anything-goes love of life. This was the cabaret drag, a springboard to stardom for young and vampy entertainers like Marlene Dietrich. (Born in 1901, Dietrich starred in the first major German talkie—The Blue Angel—and then headed straight to Hollywood.)
Now Friedrichstrasse is lined with super-department stores and big-time hotels. Consider detouring to the megastore Galeries Lafayette (Mon-Sat 10:00-20:00, closed Sun); check out the vertical garden on its front wall, belly up to the amazing ground-floor viewpoint of its marble and glass waste-of-space interior, have lunch in its recommended basement food court, or, if the weather’s nice, pick up some classy munchies here for a Gendarmenmarkt picnic. The short walk here provides some of Berlin’s most jarring old-versus-new architectural contrasts—be sure to look up as you stroll. (If you were to continue down Friedrichstrasse from here, you’d wind up at Checkpoint Charlie in about 10 minutes.)
• We’ve reached the end of Part 1 of this walk. This is a good place to take a break, if you wish, and pick up Part 2 another time. But if you’re up for ambling on, head down Unter den Linden a few more blocks, past the large equestrian statue of Frederick the Great, then turn right into Bebelplatz.
• Starting at Bebelplatz, head to the center of the square, and find the glass window in the pavement. We’ll begin with some history and a spin tour.
BebelplatzFor centuries, up until the early 1700s, Prussia had been likened to a modern-day Sparta—it was all about its military. Voltaire famously said, “Whereas some states have an army, the Prussian army has a state.” But Frederick the Great—who ruled from 1740 to 1786—established Prussia not just as a military power, but also as a cultural and intellectual heavyweight. This square was the center of the cultural capital that Frederick envisioned. His grand palace was just down the street.
Imagine that it’s 1760. Pan around the square to see Frederick’s contributions to Prussian culture. Everything is draped with Greek-inspired Prussian pomp. Sure, Prussia was a militaristic power. But Frederick also built an “Athens on the Spree”—an enlightened and cultured society.
To visually survey the square, start with the university across the street and spin counterclockwise:
Humboldt University, across Unter den Linden, is one of Europe’s greatest. Marx and Lenin (not the brothers or the sisters) studied here, as did the Grimms (both brothers) and more than two dozen Nobel Prize winners. Einstein, who was Jewish, taught here until taking a spot at Princeton in 1932 (smart guy). Used-book merchants set up their tables in front of the university.
Turn 90 degrees to the left to face the former state library (labeled Juristische Fakultät). Bombed in WWII, the library was rebuilt by the East German government in the original style only because Vladimir Lenin studied law here during much of his exile from Russia. If you climb to the second floor of the library and go through the door opposite the stairs, you’ll see a 1968 vintage stained-glass window depicting Lenin’s life’s work with almost biblical reverence. On the ground floor is Tim’s Espressobar, a great little café with light food, student prices, and garden seating (closed Sun, handy WC).
The far end of the square is closed off by one of Berlin’s swankiest lodgings—Hotel de Rome, housed in a historic bank building with a spa and lap pool fitted into the former vault.
The round, Catholic St. Hedwig’s Church, nicknamed the “upside-down teacup,” is a statement of religious and cultural tolerance. The pragmatic Frederick the Great wanted to encourage the integration of Catholic Silesians after his empire annexed their region in 1742, and so the first Catholic church since the Reformation was built in Berlin. (St. Hedwig is the patron saint of Silesia, a region now shared by Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic.) Like all Catholic churches in Berlin, St. Hedwig’s is not on the street, but stuck in a kind of back lot—indicating inferiority to Protestant churches. You can step inside the church to see the cheesy DDR government renovation.
The 
German State Opera (Staatsoper) was bombed in 1941, rebuilt to bolster morale and to celebrate its centennial in 1943, and bombed again in 1945. It’s currently undergoing an extensive renovation.
Now look down through the glass you’re standing on: The room of empty bookshelves is a memorial repudiating a notorious Nazi book burning on this square. In 1933 staff and students from the university threw 20,000 newly forbidden books (authored by Einstein, Hemmingway, Freud, and T. S. Eliot, among others) into a huge bonfire on the orders of the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. In fact, Goebbels himself tossed books onto the fire, condemning writers to the flames. He declared, “The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism has come to an end, and the German revolution has again opened the way for the true essence of being German.”
The Prussian heritage of Frederick the Great was one of culture and enlightenment. Hitler chose this square to thoroughly squash those ideals, dramatically signaling that the era of tolerance and openness was over. Hitler was establishing a new age of intolerance where German-ness was correct and diversity was evil.
A plaque nearby reminds us of the prophetic quote by the German poet Heinrich Heine. In 1820, he wrote, “Where they burn books, in the end they will also burn people.” The Nazis despised Heine because he was a Jew who converted to Christianity. A century later, his books were among those that went up in flames on this spot.
This monument reminds us of that chilling event in 1933, while also inspiring vigilance against the anti-intellectual scaremongers of today, who would burn the thoughts of people they fear to defend their culture from diversity.
• Cross Unter den Linden to the university side. Just past the university is a Greek-temple-like building set in the small chestnut-tree-filled park. This is the...
Neue Wache (New Guardhouse)The emperor’s former guardhouse now holds the nation’s main memorial to all “victims of war and tyranny.” Look inside, where a replica of the Käthe Kollwitz statue, Mother with Her Dead Son, is enshrined in silence. It marks the tombs of Germany’s unknown soldier and an unknown concentration camp victim. Read the powerful statement (posted in English left of entrance). The memorial, open to the sky, incorporates the elements—sunshine, rain, snow—falling on this modern-day pietà.
• Next to the Neue Wache is Berlin’s pink-yet-formidable Zeughaus (arsenal). Dating from 1695, it’s considered the oldest building on the boulevard, and now houses the excellent 
German History Museum—well worth a visit.
Continue across a bridge to reach 
Museum Island (Museumsinsel), whose imposing Neoclassical buildings house some of Berlin’s most impressive museums (including the Pergamon Museum—famous for its classical antiquities—and all worth the better part of a sightseeing day).
For now, we’ll check out a few other landmarks on the island. First is the big, inviting park called the...
LustgartenFor 300 years, Museum Island’s big central square has flip-flopped between being a military parade ground and a people-friendly park, depending upon the political tenor of the time. During the revolutions of 1848, the Kaiser’s troops dispersed a protesting crowd that had assembled here, sending demonstrators onto footpaths. Karl Marx later commented, “It is impossible to have a revolution in a country where people stay off the grass.”
Hitler enjoyed giving speeches from the top of the museum steps overlooking this square. In fact, he had the square landscaped to fit his symmetrical tastes and propaganda needs.
In 1999, the Lustgarten was made into a park (read the history posted in the corner opposite the church). On a sunny day, it’s packed with people relaxing and is one of Berlin’s most enjoyable public spaces.
• The huge church next to the park is the...
Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom)This century-old church’s bombastic Wilhelmian architecture is a Protestant assertion of strength. It seems to proclaim, “A mighty fortress is our God.” The years of Kaiser Wilhelm’s rule, from 1888 to 1918, were a busy age of building. Germany had recently been united (1871), and the emperor wanted to give his capital stature and legitimacy. Wilhelm’s buildings are over-the-top statements: Neoclassical, Neo-Baroque, and Neo-Renaissance, with stucco and gold-tiled mosaics. This cathedral, while Protestant, is as ornate as if it were Catholic. With the emperor’s lead, this ornate style came into vogue, and anyone who wanted to be associated with the royal class built this way. (Aside from the cathedral, the other big examples of Wilhelmian architecture in Berlin are the Reichstag—which we saw earlier—and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.) The church is most impressive from the outside, and there’s no way to even peek inside without a pricey ticket.
Inside, the great reformers (Luther, Calvin, and company) stand around the brilliantly restored dome like stern saints guarding their theology. Frederick I (Frederick the Great’s gramps) rests in an ornate tomb (right transept, near entrance to dome). The 270-step climb to the outdoor dome gallery is tough but offers pleasant, breezy views of the city at the finish line. The crypt downstairs is not worth a look.
Cost and Hours: €7 includes access to dome gallery, not covered by Museum Island ticket, Mon-Sat 9:00-20:00, Sun 12:00-20:00, until 19:00 Oct-March, closes around 17:30 on concert days, interior closed but dome open during services, audioguide-€3, tel. 030/2026-9136, www.berliner-dom.de. The cathedral hosts many organ concerts (often on weekends, tickets at the door—prices range from free up to €50, but often around €10).
• Kitty-corner across the main street from the Berlin Cathedral is a huge construction site, known as the...
Humboldt-Forum Berliner SchlossFor centuries, this was the site of the Baroque palace of the Hohenzollern dynasty of Brandenburg and Prussia. Much of that palace actually survived World War II but was replaced by the communists with a blocky, Soviet-style “Palace” of the Republic—East Berlin’s parliament building/entertainment complex and a showy symbol of the communist days. The landmark building fell into disrepair after reunification, and by 2009 had been dismantled.
After much debate about how to use this prime real estate, the German parliament decided to construct the Humboldt-Forum Berliner Schloss, a huge public venue filled with museums, shops, galleries, and concert halls behind a facade constructed in imitation of the original Hohenzollern palace. With a €600 million price tag, many Berliners consider the reconstruction plan a complete waste of money. The latest news is that it should be finished by 2019.
In the meantime, the temporary, bright blue Humboldt-Box provides info and a viewing platform from which to survey the construction (until it gets in the way and also has to be demolished). Consider popping in for a look at the beautiful model, on the first floor up, showing this area as it was in 1900 (free, daily 10:00-19:00).
• Head to the bridge just beyond the Berlin Cathedral, with views of the riverbank. Consider...
This river was once a symbol of division—the East German regime put nets underwater to stymie those desperate enough for freedom to swim to the West. With the reunification of Berlin, however, the Spree River has become people-friendly and welcoming. A park-like trail leads from the Berlin Cathedral to the Hauptbahnhof, with impromptu “beachside” beer gardens with imported sand, BBQs in pocket parks, and lots of locals walking their dogs, taking a lazy bike ride, or jogging.
You may notice “don’t drop anchor” signs. There are still unexploded WWII bombs in Berlin, and many are in this river. Every month, several bombs are found at construction sites. Their triggers were set for the hard ground of Scottish testing grounds, and because Berlin sits upon soft soil, an estimated one of every ten bombs didn’t explode.
The recommended 
Spree River cruises depart from the riverbank near the bridge by the Berlin Cathedral.
• Before leaving the bridge, look upstream. In the distance, to the south, the pointy twin spires of the 13th-century Nikolai Church mark the center of medieval Berlin. This Nikolaiviertel (Viertel means “quarter”) was restored by the DDR and became trendy in the last years of communism.
Now look downstream: Farther off to the north is the gilded New Synagogue dome, rebuilt after WWII bombing. Down at your feet, along the riverbank, you’ll see the 
DDR Museum, with lots of hands-on exhibits and artifacts from everyday life in the former East Germany.
Now continue walking straight toward the TV Tower, down the big boulevard, which here changes its name to...
The first big building on the left after the bridge is the Radisson Blu Hotel and shopping center, with a huge aquarium in the center. The elevator goes right through the middle of a deep-sea world. (You can see it from the unforgettable Radisson hotel lobby—tuck in your shirt and walk past the guards with the confidence of a guest who’s sleeping there.) It’s a huge glass cylinder rising high above the central bar (best seen from the left corner as you enter). Here in the center of the old communist capital, it seems that capitalism has settled in with a spirited vengeance.
In the park immediately across the street (a big jaywalk from the Radisson) are grandfatherly statues of Marx and Engels (nicknamed the “old pensioners”). Surrounding them are stainless-steel monoliths with evocative photos illustrating the struggles of the workers of the world.
Farther along, where Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse intersects with Spandauer Strasse, look right to see the red-brick city hall. It was built after the revolutions of 1848 and was arguably the first democratic building in the city.
Continue toward 
Marien Church (from 1270), with its spire mirroring the TV Tower. Inside, an artist’s rendering helps you follow the interesting but very faded old “Dance of Death” mural that wraps around the narthex inside the door.
• Immediately across the street from the church, detour a half-block down little Rosenstrasse to find a beautiful memorial set in a park.
Women’s Protest Memorial: This is a reminder of a successful and courageous protest against Nazi policies. In 1943, when “privileged Jews” (men married to Gentile women) were arrested, their wives demonstrated en masse on this street, home to Berlin’s oldest synagogue (now gone). They actually won the freedom of their men. Note the Berliner on the bench nearby. As most Berliners did, he looks the other way, even when these courageous women demonstrated that you could speak up and be heard under the Nazis.
• Back on Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse, look up at the 1,200-foot-tall...
TV Tower (Fernsehturm): Built (with Swedish know-how) in 1969 for the 20th anniversary of the communist government, the tower was meant to show the power of the atheistic state at a time when DDR leaders were having the crosses removed from church domes and spires. But when the sun hit the tower—the greatest spire in East Berlin—a huge cross was reflected on the mirrored ball. Cynics called it “God’s Revenge.” East Berliners dubbed the tower the “Tele-Asparagus.” They joked that if it fell over, they’d have an elevator to the West.
The tower has a fine view from halfway up, offering a handy city orientation and an interesting look at the flat, red-roofed sprawl of Berlin—including a peek inside the city’s many courtyards (€13, daily until 24:00). The retro tower is quite trendy these days, so it can be crowded (your ticket comes with an assigned entry time). Consider a kitschy trip to the observation deck for the view and lunch in its revolving restaurant (mediocre food, €12 plates, horrible lounge music, reservations smart for dinner, tel. 030/242-3333, www.tv-turm.de).
• Walk four more minutes down the boulevard past the TV Tower and toward the big railway overpass. Just before the bridge, on the left, is the half-price ticket booth called Hekticket—stop in to see what’s on.
Walk under the train bridge and continue for a long half-block (passing the Galeria Kaufhof mall). Turn right onto a broad pedestrian street, and go through the low tunnel into the big square where blue U-Bahn station signs mark...
AlexanderplatzThis square was the commercial pride and joy of East Berlin. The Kaufhof department store (now Galeria Kaufhof) was the ultimate shopping mecca for Easterners. It, along with the two big surviving 1920s “functionalist” buildings, defined the square. Alexanderplatz is still a landmark, with a major U-Bahn/S-Bahn station. The once-futuristic, now-retro “World Time Clock,” installed in 1969, is a nostalgic favorite and remains a popular meeting point.
Stop in the square for a coffee and to people-watch. You may see the dueling human hot-dog stands. These hot-dog hawkers wear ingenious harnesses that let them cook and sell tasty, cheap German sausages on the fly. (Grillwalker is the original company; Grillrunner is the copycat.) While the square can get a little rough at night, it’s generally a great scene.
• Our orientation stroll is finished. From here, you can hike back a bit to catch the riverboat tour or visit Museum Island or the German History museums, take in the sights south of Unter den Linden, venture into the colorful Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood, or consider extending this foray into eastern Berlin by way of Karl-Marx-Allee. These options are covered in detail in the next section.
Many of Berlin’s top sights and landmarks in this area are described in detail in the self-guided walk above (including the Brandenburg Gate, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Pariser Platz, and Unter den Linden.
Germany’s historic parliament building—completed in 1894, burned in 1933, sad and lonely in a no-man’s land throughout the Cold War, and finally rebuilt and topped with a glittering glass cupola in 1999—is a symbol of a proudly reunited nation. It’s fascinating to climb up the twin ramps that spiral through its dome. Because of security concerns, getting in requires a reservation.
Cost and Hours: Free, but reservations required—see below, daily 8:00-24:00, last entry at 22:00, metal detectors, no big luggage allowed, Platz der Republik 1; S- or U-Bahn: Friedrichstrasse, Brandenburger Tor, or Bundestag; tel. 030/2273-2152, www.bundestag.de.
Reservations: To visit the dome, you’ll need to reserve online; spots often book up several days in advance. Go to www.bundestag.de, and from the “Visit the Bundestag” menu, select “Online registration.” After choosing your preferred date and time, you’ll be sent an email link to a website where you’ll enter details for each person in your party. A final email will contain your reservation (with a letter you must print out and bring with you).
If you’re in Berlin without a reservation, try dropping by the tiny visitors center on the Tiergarten side of Scheidemannstrasse, across from Platz der Republik, to see if any tickets are available (open daily 8:00-20:00, until 18:00 Nov-March; go early to avoid lines; you must book no less than 2 hours and no more than 2 days out; when booking, the whole party must be present and ID is required).
Another option for visiting the dome, though a bit pricey, is to make lunch or dinner reservations for the rooftop restaurant, Käfer Dachgarten (€22-25 lunches, €30-34 dinners, daily 9:00-16:30 & 18:30-24:00, last access at 22:00, reserve well in advance at tel. 030/2262-9933 or www.feinkost-kaefer.de/berlin).
Getting In: Report a few minutes before your appointed time to the temporary-looking entrance facility in front of the Reichstag, and be ready to show ID and your reservation print-out. After passing through a security check, you’ll wait with other visitors for a guard to take you to the Reichstag entrance.
Tours: Pick up the English Outlooks flier when you exit the elevator at the top of the Reichstag. The free audioguide explains the building and narrates the view as you wind up the spiral ramp to the top of the dome; the commentary starts automatically as you step onto the bottom of the ramp.
Self-Guided Tour: The open, airy lobby towers 100 feet high, with 65-foot-tall colors of the German flag. See-through glass doors show the central legislative chamber. The message: There will be no secrets in this government. Look inside. Spreading his wings behind the podium is a stylized German eagle, the Bundestagsadler (a.k.a. the “fat hen”), representing the Bundestag (each branch of government has its own symbolic eagle). Notice the doors marked Ja (Yes), Nein (No), and Enthalten (Abstain)...an homage to the Bundestag’s traditional “sheep jump” way of counting votes by exiting the chamber through the corresponding door (for critical votes, however, all 631 members vote with electronic cards).
Ride the elevator to the base of the glass dome. Pick up the free audioguide and take some time to study the photos and read the circle of captions (around the base of the central funnel) for an excellent exhibit telling the Reichstag story. Then study the surrounding architecture: a broken collage of new on old, torn between antiquity and modernity, like Germany’s history. Notice the dome’s giant and unobtrusive sunscreen that moves as necessary with the sun. Peer down through the skylight to look over the shoulders of the elected representatives at work. For Germans, the best view from here is down—keeping a close eye on their government.
Start at the ramp nearest the elevator and wind up to the top of the double ramp. Take a 360-degree survey of the city as you hike: The big park is the Tiergarten, the “green lungs of Berlin.” Beyond that is the Teufelsberg (“Devil’s Hill”). Built of rubble from the destroyed city in the late 1940s, it was famous during the Cold War as a powerful ear of the West—notice the telecommunications tower on top. Knowing the bombed-out and bulldozed story of their city, locals say, “You have to be suspicious when you see the nice, green park.”
Find the Victory Column (Siegessäule), glimmering in the middle of the park. Hitler moved it in the 1930s from in front of the Reichstag to its present position in the Tiergarten as part of his grandiose vision for postwar Berlin. Next, scenes of the new Berlin spiral into view—Potsdamer Platz, marked by the conical glass tower that houses Sony’s European headquarters. Continue circling left, and find the green chariot atop the Brandenburg Gate. Just to its left is the curving fish-like roof of the DZ Bank building, designed by the unconventional American architect Frank Gehry. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe stretches south of the Brandenburg Gate. Next, you’ll see former East Berlin and the city’s next huge construction zone, with a forest of 300-foot-tall skyscrapers in the works. Notice the TV Tower, the Berlin Cathedral’s massive dome, and the golden dome of the New Synagogue.
Follow the train tracks in the distance to the left toward Berlin’s huge main train station, the Hauptbahnhof. Complete your spin-tour with the blocky, postmodern Chancellery, the federal government’s headquarters. Continue spiraling up. You’ll come across all the same sights again, twice, from a higher vantage point.
Three Museum Island landmarks—the Lustgarten, Berlin Cathedral, and the Humboldt-Box—are described earlier, in my “Best of Berlin Walk.”
Five of Berlin’s top museums are concentrated on this aptly named, centrally located island, just up Unter den Linden from the Brandenburg Gate. (They’re all part of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.) The earliest building—the Altes Museum—went up in the 1820s, and the rest of the complex began taking shape in the 1840s under King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who envisioned the island as an oasis of culture and learning.
A formidable renovation is under way on Museum Island. When complete (it’s hoped in 2019), a new visitors center—the James-Simon-Galerie—will link the Pergamon Museum with the Altes Museum, the Pergamon will get a fourth wing, tunnels will lace the complex together, and this will become one of the grandest museum zones in Europe. In the meantime, pardon their dust.
Cost: The €18 Museum Island Pass combo-ticket—covering all five museums—is a far better value than buying individual entries, which range from €10 to €14. All five museums are also included in the city’s €24 Museum Pass Berlin. Special exhibits are extra.
Hours: Museum hours are 10:00-18:00 (until 20:00 on Thu). The Pergamon and Neues museums are open daily; the Old National Gallery, Bode Museum, and Altes Museum are open Tue-Sun, closed Mon.
When to Go: Mornings are busiest, and you’re likely to find long lines any time of day on Saturday or Sunday. The least-crowded time is Thursday evening, when the museums are open late. Only the Pergamon Museum tends to have serious lines, though.
Crowd-Beating Tips: Avoid the lines for the Pergamon Museum by purchasing a timed ticket online, or book a free timed-entry reservation if you have a Museum Pass Berlin or a Museum Island Pass (www.smb.museum). Both passes allow you to skip ticket-buying lines at the other museums on the island, but online booking is your only option for getting right to the head of the Pergamon’s line.
Getting There: The nearest S-Bahn station is Hackescher Markt, about a 10-minute walk away. From hotels in Prenzlauer Berg, ride tram #M-1 to the end of line, and you’re right at the Pergamon Museum.
Information: Tel. 030/266-424-242, www.smb.museum.
Eating: For lunch in the neighborhood, follow the elevated train tracks away from the Pergamon down Georgenstrasse, or cross the Friedrichsbrücke bridge and follow signs for five minutes to Hackescher Markt, with its multitude of eateries.
Just for Fun: Germany’s formidable leader, Angela Merkel, could live in the expansive digs at the Chancellery. But she and her husband (who’s a professor right here at Humboldt University) have long lived in an apartment overlooking Museum Island. You’ll see a couple of policemen providing modest protection in front of her place on Am Kupfergraben, directly across the bridge from the Pergamon Museum.
The star attraction of this world-class museum, part of Berlin’s Collection of Classical Antiquities (Antikensammlung), is the fantastic and gigantic Pergamon Altar...which is off-limits to visitors until 2019, as the museum undergoes major renovation. But there’s much more to see here, including the Babylonian Ishtar Gate (slathered with glazed blue tiles from the sixth century B.C.) and ancient Mesopotamian, Roman, and early Islamic treasures. During the renovation, some of the museum’s Greek and Roman pieces are temporarily installed at the Altes Museum (but Hellenistic architecture and artworks won’t be seen again until 2019).
Visting the Museum: Make ample use of the superb audioguide (included with admission)—it will broaden your experience.
From the entry hall, head up the stairs and all the way back to 575 B.C., to the Fertile Crescent—Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq). The Assyrian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II, who amassed a vast empire and enormous wealth, wanted to build a suitably impressive processional entryway to his capital city, Babylon, to honor the goddess Ishtar. His creation, the blue Ishtar Gate, inspired awe and obedience in anyone who came to his city. This is a reconstruction, using some original components. The gate itself is embellished with two animals: a bull and a mythical dragon-like combination of lion, cobra, eagle, and scorpion. The long hall leading to the main gate—designed for a huge processional of deities to celebrate the new year—is decorated with a chain of blue and yellow glazed tiles with 120 strolling lions (representing the goddess Ishtar). To get the big picture, find the model of the original site in the center of the hall.
Pass through the gate, and flash-forward 700 years to the ancient Roman city of Miletus. Dominating this room is the 95-foot-wide, 55-foot-high Market Gate of Miletus, destroyed by an earthquake centuries ago and now painstakingly reconstructed here in Berlin. The exquisite mosaic floor from a Roman villa in Miletus has two parts: In the square panel, the musician Orpheus strokes his lyre to charm the animals; in stark contrast, in the nearby rectangular mosaic (from an adjacent room), hunters pursue wild animals.
These main exhibits are surrounded by smaller galleries. Upstairs is the Museum of Islamic Art. It contains fine carpets, tile work, the Aleppo Room (with ornately painted wooden walls from an early 17th-century home in today’s Syria; since it was commissioned by a Christian, it incorporates Arabic, Persian, and biblical themes), and the Mshatta Facade (walls and towers from one of the early eighth-century Umayyad “desert castles,” from today’s Jordan).
Oddly, Museum Island’s so-called “new” museum features the oldest stuff around. There are three collections here: the Egyptian Collection (with the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti), the Museum of Prehistory and Early History, and some items from the Collection of Classical Antiquities (artifacts from ancient Troy—famously excavated by German adventurer Heinrich Schliemann—and Cyprus).
After being damaged in World War II and sitting in ruins for some 40 years, the Neues Museum has been gorgeously rebuilt. Everything is well-described by posted English information and the fine audioguide (included with admission), which celebrates new knowledge about ancient Egyptian civilization and offers fascinating insights into workaday Egyptian life as it describes the vivid papyrus collection, slice-of-life artifacts, and dreamy wax portraits decorating mummy cases (for more on the museum, see www.neues-museum.de).
Visiting the Museum: Pick up a floor plan showing the suggested route, then head up the central staircase.
The top draw here is the Egyptian art—clearly one of the world’s best collections. But let’s face it: The main reason to visit is to enjoy one of the great thrills in art appreciation—gazing into the still young and beautiful face of Queen Nefertiti. If you’re in a pinch for time, make a beeline to her (floor 2, far corner of Egyptian Collection in Room 210).
To tour the whole collection, start at the top (floor 3), which is where you’ll find the prehistory section. The entire floor is filled with Stone Age, Ice Age, and Bronze Age items. You’ll see early human remains, tools, spearheads, and pottery.
The most interesting item on this floor (in corner Room 305) is the tall, conehead-like Golden Hat, made of paper-thin hammered gold leaf. Created by an early Celtic civilization in Central Europe, it’s particularly exquisite for something so old (from the Bronze Age, around 1000 B.C.). The circles on the hat represent the sun, moon, and other celestial bodies—leading archaeologists to believe that this headwear could double as a calendar, showing how the sun and moon sync up every 19 years.
Down on floor 2, you’ll find early history exhibits on migrations, barbarians, and ancient Rome (including larger-than-life statues of Helios and an unidentified goddess) as well as a fascinating look at the Dark Ages after the fall of Rome.
Still on floor 2, cross to the other side of the building for the Egyptian section. On the way, you’ll pass through the impressive Papyrus Collection—a large room of seemingly empty glass cases. Press a button to watch a 3,000-year-old piece of primitive “paper” (made of aquatic reeds), imprinted with primitive text, trundle out of its protective home.
Then, finally, in a room all her own, is the 3,000-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti (the wife of King Akhenaton, c. 1340 B.C.)—the most famous piece of Egyptian art in Europe. (Note that she’s had it with the paparazzi—photos of her are strictly verboten.) Called “Berlin’s most beautiful woman,” Nefertiti has all the right beauty marks: long neck, symmetrical face, and the perfect amount of makeup. And yet, she’s not completely idealized. Notice the fine wrinkles that show she’s human (though these only enhance her beauty). Like a movie star discreetly sipping a glass of wine at a sidewalk café, Nefertiti seems somehow more dignified in person. The bust never left its studio, but served as a master model for all other portraits of the queen. (That’s probably why the left eye was never inlaid.) Stare at her long enough, and you may get the sensation that she’s winking at you. Hey, beautiful!
How the queen arrived in Germany is a tale out of Indiana Jones. The German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt uncovered her in the Egyptian desert in 1912. The Egyptian Department of Antiquities had first pick of all the artifacts uncovered on their territory. After the first takings, they divided the rest 50/50 with the excavators. When Borchardt presented Nefertiti to the Egyptians, they passed her over, never bothering to examine her closely. Unsubstantiated rumors persist that Borchardt misled the Egyptians in order to keep the bust for himself—rumors that have prompted some Egyptians to call for the return of Nefertiti (just as the Greeks are lobbying the British to return the Parthenon frieze currently housed in the British Museum). Although this bust is not particularly representative of Egyptian art in general—and despite increasing claims that her long neck suggests she’s a Neoclassical fake—Nefertiti has become a symbol of Egyptian art by popular acclaim.
The Egyptian Collection continues with other sculptures, including kneeling figures holding inscribed stone tablets. You’ll also see entire walls from tombs and (in the basement—floor 0) a sea of large sarcophagi.
This gallery, behind the Neues Museum and Altes Museum, is designed to look like a Greek temple. Spanning three floors, it focuses on art (mostly paintings) from the 19th century: Romantic German paintings (which I find most interesting) on the top floor, and French and German Impressionists and German Realists on the first and second floors. You likely won’t recognize any specific paintings, but it’s still an enjoyable stroll through German culture from the century in which that notion first came to mean something. The included audioguide explains the highlights.
Visiting the Museum: Start on the third floor, with Romantic canvases and art of the Goethe era (roughly 1770-1830), and work your way down. Use the audioguide to really delve into these romanticized, vivid looks at life in Germany in the 19th century and before. As you stroll through the Romantic paintings—the museum’s strength—keep in mind that they were created about the time (mid-late 19th century) that Germans were first working toward a single, unified nation. By glorifying pristine German landscapes and a rugged, virtuous people, these painters evoked the region’s high-water mark—the Middle Ages, when “Germany” was a patchwork of powerful and wealthy merchant city-states. Linger over dreamy townscapes with Gothic cathedrals and castles that celebrate medieval German might. Still lifes, genre paintings of everyday scenes (often with subtle social commentary), and portraits ranging from idealized tow-headed children to influential German leaders (such as Otto von Bismarck, pictured) strum the heartstrings of anyone with Teutonic blood. The Düsseldorf School excelled at Romantic landscapes (such as Carl Friedrich Lessing’s Knight’s Castle). Some of these canvases nearly resemble present-day fantasy paintings. Perhaps the best-known artist in the collection is Caspar David Friedrich, who specialized in dramatic scenes celebrating grandeur and the solitary hero. His The Monk by the Sea (Der Mönch am Meer) shows a lone figure standing on a sand dune, pondering a vast, turbulent expanse of sea and sky.
On the second floor, you’ll find one big room of minor works by bigger-name French artists, including Renoir, Cézanne, Manet, Monet, and Rodin. Another room is devoted to the Romantic Hans von Marées, the influential early Symbolist Arnold Böcklin, and other artists of the “German Roman” (Deutschrömer) movement—Germans who lived in, and were greatly influenced by, Rome. Artists of the Munich School are represented by naturalistic canvases of landscapes or slice-of-life scenes.
On the first floor, 19th-century Realism reigns. While the Realist Adolph Menzel made his name painting elegant royal gatherings and historical events, his Iron Rolling Mill (Das Eisenwalzwerk) captures the gritty side of his moment in history—the emergence of the Industrial Age—with a warts-and-all look at steelworkers toiling in a hellish factory. The first floor also hosts a sculpture collection, with works by great sculptors both foreign (the Italian Canova, the Dane Thorvaldsen) and German (Johann Gottfried Schadow’s delightful Die Prinzessinnen, showing the dynamic duo of Prussian princesses, Louise and Frederike). Also on the first floor, near the sculptures, look for a low-key room left unrestored so visitors can recall the days when the DDR ran this museum.
At the “prow” of Museum Island, the Bode Museum (designed to appear as if it’s rising up from the river) is worth a brief stop. Just inside, a grand statue of Frederick William of Brandenburg on horseback, curly locks blowing in the wind, welcomes you into the lonely halls of the museum. This fine building contains a hodgepodge of collections: Byzantine art, historic coins, ecclesiastical art, sculptures, and medals commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification. For a free, quick look at its lavish interior, climb the grand staircase to the charming café on the first floor.
Perhaps the least interesting of the five museums, this building features the rest of the Collection of Classical Antiquities—namely, Etruscan, Roman, and Greek art. It also contains Greek and Roman sculptures, vases, and some bronze figurines from the currently closed north wing of the Pergamon Museum.
The German History Museum is on Unter den Linden just before the boulevard crosses to Museum Island; the Palace of Tears is north of the boulevard, very near the Spree River. The DDR Museum sits on the other side of Museum Island, on the riverbank directly across from the Berlin Cathedral.
This fantastic museum is a two-part affair: the pink former Prussian arsenal building and the I. M. Pei-designed annex. The main building (fronting Unter den Linden) houses the permanent collection, offering the best look at German history under one roof, anywhere. The modern annex features good temporary exhibits surrounded by the work of a great contemporary architect. While this city has more than its share of hokey “museums” that slap together WWII and Cold War bric-a-brac, then charge too much for admission, this thoughtfully presented museum—with more than 8,000 artifacts telling not just the story of Berlin, but of all Germany—is clearly the top history museum in town. If you need a break during your visit, there’s a restful café with terrace seating in season.
Cost and Hours: €8, daily 10:00-18:00, Unter den Linden 2, tel. 030/2030-4751, www.dhm.de. For the most informative visit, invest in the excellent €3 audioguide, with six hours of info to choose from.
Getting In: If the ticket-buying line is long at the main entrance, try circling around the back to the Pei annex (to reach it, head down the street to the left of the museum—called Hinter dem Giesshaus), where entry lines are usually shorter (but audioguides for the permanent exhibit are available only at the main desk).
Visiting the Museum: The permanent collection packs two huge rectangular floors of the old arsenal building with historical objects, photographs, and models—all well-described in English and intermingled with multimedia stations to help put everything in context. From the lobby, head upstairs to the first floor and work your way chronologically down. This floor traces German history from A.D. 500 to 1918, with exhibits on early cultures, the Middle Ages, Reformation, Thirty Years’ War, German Empire, and World War I. You’ll see lots of models of higgledy-piggledy medieval towns and castles, tapestries, suits of armor, busts of great Germans, a Turkish tent from the Ottoman siege of Vienna (1683), flags from German unification in 1871 (the first time “Germany” existed as a nation), exhibits on everyday life in the tenements of the Industrial Revolution, and much more.
History marches on through the 20th century on the ground floor, including the Weimar Republic, Nazism, World War II, Allied occupation, and a divided Germany. Propaganda posters trumpet Germany’s would-be post-WWI savior, Adolf Hitler. Look for the model of the impossibly huge, 950-foot-high, 180,000-capacity domed hall Hitler wanted to erect in the heart of Berlin, which he planned to re-envision as Welthauptstadt Germania, the “world capital” of his far-reaching Third Reich. Another model shows the nauseating reality of Hitler’s grandiosity: a crematorium at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in occupied Poland. The exhibit wraps up with chunks of the Berlin Wall, reunification, and a quick look at Germany today.
For architecture buffs, the big attraction is the Pei annex behind the history museum, which complements the museum with often-fascinating temporary exhibits. From the old building, cross through the courtyard (with the Pei glass canopy overhead) to reach the annex. A striking glassed-in spiral staircase unites four floors with surprising views and lots of light. It’s here that you’ll experience why Pei—famous for his glass pyramid at Paris’ Louvre—is called the “perfector of classical modernism,” “master of light,” and a magician at uniting historical buildings with new ones.
The border station attached to Friedrichstrasse train station was where Westerners visiting loved ones in the East would be checked before crossing back into the free world. The scene of so many sad farewells, it earned the nickname “Tränenpalast” (palace of tears). It finally closed in 1990, but the 1962 building survives. An exhibit shows everyday life in a divided Germany, with a fascinating peek into the paranoid border-control world of the DDR.
Cost and Hours: Free, includes excellent audioguide, Tue-Fri 9:00-19:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, closed Mon, on the river side of the Friedrichstrasse station, Reichstagufer 17, tel. 030/4677-7790, www.hdg.de/berlin.
The exhibits here offer an interesting look at life in the former East Germany without the negative spin most museums give. It’s well-stocked with kitschy everyday items from the communist period, plus photos, video clips, and concise English explanations. The exhibits are interactive—you’re encouraged to pick up and handle anything that isn’t behind glass.
Cost and Hours: €7, daily 10:00-20:00, Sat until 22:00, just across the Spree from Museum Island at Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 1, tel. 030/847-123-731, www.ddr-museum.de.
Visiting the Museum: You’ll crawl through a Trabant car (designed by East German engineers to compete with the West’s popular VW Beetle) and pick up some DDR-era black humor (“East Germany had 39 newspapers, four radio stations, two TV channels...and one opinion”). The reconstructed communist-era home lets you tour the kitchen, living room, bedrooms, and more. You’ll learn about the dacha—the simple countryside cottages (owned by one in six East Germans) used for weekend retreats from the grimy city. (Others vacationed on the Baltic Coast, where nudism was all the rage, as a very revealing display explains.) Lounge in DDR cinema chairs as you view a subtitled propaganda film or clips from beloved-in-the-East TV shows, including the popular kids’ show Sandmännchen—“Little Sandman”.
The following sights—heavy on Nazi and Wall history—are listed roughly north to south (as you reach them from Unter den Linden).
This delightful, historic square is bounded by twin churches, a tasty chocolate shop, and the Berlin Symphony’s concert hall (designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the man who put the Neoclassical stamp on Berlin and Dresden). In summer, it hosts a few outdoor cafés, Biergartens, and sometimes concerts. Wonderfully symmetrical, the square is considered by Berliners to be the finest in town (U6: Französische Strasse; U2 or U6: Stadtmitte).
The name of the square, which is part French and part German (after the Gens d’Armes, Frederick the Great’s royal guard, who were headquartered here), reminds us that in the 17th century, a fifth of all Berliners were French émigrés—Protestant Huguenots fleeing Catholic France. Back then, Frederick the Great’s tolerant Prussia was a magnet for the persecuted (and their money). These émigrés vitalized Berlin with new ideas, know-how, and their substantial wealth.
The church on the south end of square (to your left facing the concert hall) is the German Cathedral (Deutscher Dom—not to be confused with the Berlin Cathedral on Museum Island). This cathedral was bombed flat in the war and rebuilt only in the 1980s. It houses the thought-provoking “Milestones, Setbacks, Sidetracks” (Wege, Irrwege, Umwege) exhibit, which traces the history of the German parliamentary system—worth ▲. While light on actual historical artifacts, the well done exhibit takes you quickly from the revolutionary days of 1848 to the 1920s, and then more deeply through the tumultuous 20th century. There are no English descriptions—but you can follow along with the excellent and free 1.5-hour English audioguide (ID required). The exhibit feels less like a museum and more like an educational exercise—because that’s just what this is. Germany is well aware that a dumbed-down electorate, manipulated by clever spin-meisters and sound-bite media blitzes, is a dangerous thing (free, Tue-Sun 10:00-19:00, Oct-April until 18:00, closed Mon year-round, tel. 030/2273-0432).
The French Cathedral (Französischer Dom), at the north end of the square, offers a humble museum on the Huguenots (€2, Tue-Sun 12:00-17:00, closed Mon, enter around the right side, tel. 030/229-1760) and a viewpoint in the dome up top (€3, daily 10:00-18:00, Nov-March until 17:30, 244 steps, enter through door facing square, tel. 030/203-060, www.franzoesischer-dom.de).
Fun fact: Neither of these churches is a true cathedral, as they never contained a bishop’s throne; their German titles of Dom (cathedral) are actually a mistranslation from the French word dôme (cupola).
Fassbender & Rausch, on the corner near the German Cathedral, claims to be Europe’s biggest chocolate store. After 150 years of chocolate-making, this family-owned business proudly displays its sweet delights—250 different kinds—on a 55-foot-long buffet. Truffles are sold for about €0.75 each; it’s fun to compose a fancy little eight-piece box of your own. Upstairs is an elegant hot chocolate café with fine views. The window displays feature giant chocolate models of Berlin landmarks—Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a chunk of the wall, and so on. If all this isn’t enough to entice you, I have three words: erupting chocolate volcano (Mon-Sat 10:00-20:00, Sun from 11:00, corner of Mohrenstrasse at Charlottenstrasse 60, tel. 030/757-882-440).
Gendarmenmarkt is buried in what has recently emerged as Berlin’s “Fifth Avenue” shopping district. For the ultimate in top-end shops, find the corner of Jägerstrasse and Friedrichstrasse and wander through the Quartier 206 (Mon-Fri 10:30-19:30, Sat 10:00-18:00, closed Sun). The adjacent, middlebrow Quartier 205 has more affordable prices.
A variety of fascinating sites relating to Germany’s tumultuous 20th century cluster south of Unter den Linden. While you can see your choice of the following places in any order, I’ve linked them with walking directions from Potsdamer Platz to Checkpoint Charlie.
• From Potsdamer Platz, take a few steps down Stresemannstrasse and detour left down Erna-Berger-Strasse to find a lonely concrete watchtower.
This was one of many such towers built in 1966 for panoramic surveillance and shooting (note the rifle windows, allowing shots to be fired in 360 degrees). It was constantly manned by two guards who were forbidden to get to know each other (no casual chatting)—so they could effectively guard each other from escaping. This is one of only a few such towers still standing.
Cost and Hours: €3.50, open only sporadically, though officially daily 11:00-15:00.
• Return to Stresemannstrasse, and continue south (away from Potsdamer Platz). As you round the corner turning left, you’ll begin to see some...
Surviving stretches of the Wall are rare in downtown Berlin, but you’ll find a few in this area. On the left as you turn from Erna-Berger-Strasse onto Stresemannstrasse, look carefully at the modern Ministry of the Environment (Bundesministerium für Umwelt) building; notice the nicely painted stretch of inner wall (inside the modern building constructed around it). The Wall was actually two walls, with a death strip in the middle (where Stresemannstrasse is today). Across the street, embedded in the sidewalk, cobblestones mark the former path of the outer wall.
• From here, you could continue down Stresemannstrasse and detour to the modest Berlin Story Bunker museum, located in a still-intact WWII air-raid shelter (small entry fee, closed Mon, Schöneberger Strasse 23a, www.berlinstory-bunker.de).
But we’ll continue our walk: At the corner with Niederkirchnerstrasse, turn left and follow the cobbles in the sidewalk. After about a block (just beyond the Martin-Gropius-Bau museum), where the street becomes cobbled, an original fragment of the Berlin Wall stretches alongside the right side of the street.
Follow the Wall until it ends, at the intersection of Niederkirchnerstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse. Hook right around the end of the Wall to reach the...
Coincidentally, the patch of land behind the surviving stretch of Wall was closely associated with an even more deplorable regime: It was once the nerve center for the the Gestapo and the SS, the most despicable elements of the Nazi government. This stark, gray, boxy building is one of the few memorial sites that focuses on the perpetrators rather than the victims of the Nazis. It’s chilling to see just how seamlessly and bureaucratically the Nazi institutions and state structures merged to become a well-oiled terror machine. There are few actual artifacts here; it’s mostly written explanations and photos, like reading a good textbook standing up. And, while you could read this story anywhere, to take this in atop the Gestapo headquarters is a powerful experience. The exhibit is a bit dense, but WWII historians (even armchair ones) will find it fascinating.
Cost and Hours: Free, includes audioguide for outdoor exhibit, daily 10:00-20:00, outdoor exhibit closes at dusk, Niederkirchnerstrasse 8, U-Bahn: Potsdamer Platz or Kochstrasse, S-Bahn: Anhalter Bahnhof or Potsdamer Platz, tel. 030/254-5090, www.topographie.de.
Background: This location marks what was once the most feared address in Berlin: the headquarters of the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt). These offices served as the engine room of the Nazi dictatorship, as well as the command center of the SS (Schutzstaffel, whose members began as Hitler’s personal bodyguards), the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei, secret state police), and the SD (Sicherheitsdienst, the Nazi intelligence agency). This trio (and others) were ultimately consolidated under Heinrich Himmler to become a state-within-a-state, with talons in every corner of German society. This elite militarized branch of the Nazi machine was also tasked with the “racial purification” of German-held lands, especially Eastern Europe: the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” It was from these headquarters that the Nazis administered concentration camps, firmed up plans for their genocide of Jews, and organized the domestic surveillance of anyone opposed to the regime. The building was also equipped with dungeons, where the Gestapo detained and tortured thousands of prisoners.
The Gestapo and SS employed intimidation techniques to coerce cooperation from the German people. The general public knew that the Gestapo was to be feared: It was considered omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. Some political prisoners underwent “enhanced interrogation” right here in this building. The threat of Schutzhaft (“protective custody,” usually at a concentration camp) was used to terrify any civilians who stepped out of line—or who might make a good example. But Hitler and his cronies also won people’s loyalties through propaganda. They hammered home the idealistic notion of the Volksgemeinschaft (“people’s community”) of a purely Germanic culture and race, which empowered Hitler to create a pervasive illusion that “we’re all in this together.” Anyone who was not an Aryan was Untermensch—subhuman—and must be treated as such.
Visiting the Museum: The complex has two parts: indoors, in the modern boxy building; and outdoors, in the trench that runs along the surviving stretch of Wall. Visit the indoor exhibit first.
Inside, you’ll find a visitors center with an information desk and an extensive Topography of Terror exhibit about the SS and Gestapo, and the atrocities they committed in Berlin and across Europe. A model of the government quarter, circa 1939, sets the stage of Nazi domination in this area. A timeline of events and old photographs, documents, and newspaper clippings illustrates how Hitler and his team expertly manipulated the German people to build a broadly supported “dictatorship of consent.”
The exhibit walks you through the evolution of Hitler’s regime: the Nazi takeover; institutions of terror (Himmler’s “SS State”); terror, persecution, and extermination; atrocities in Nazi-occupied countries; and the war’s end and postwar. Some images here are indelible, such as photos of SS soldiers stationed at Auschwitz, gleefully yukking it up on a retreat in the countryside (as their helpless prisoners were being gassed and burned a few miles away). The exhibit profiles specific members of the various reprehensible SS branches, as well as the groups they targeted: Jews; Roma and Sinti (Gypsies); the unemployed or homeless; homosexuals; and the physically and mentally ill (considered “useless eaters” who consumed resources without contributing work).
Downstairs is a WC and a library with research books on these topics. Before heading outside, ask at the information desk for the free audioguide that describes the outdoor exhibits.
Outside, in the trench along the Wall, you’ll find the exhibit Berlin 1933-1945: Between Propaganda and Terror (occasionally replaced by temporary exhibits), which overlaps slightly with the indoor exhibit but focuses on Berlin. The chronological survey begins with the post-WWI Weimar Republic and continues through the ragged days just after World War II. One display explains how Nazis invented holidays (or injected new Aryan meaning into existing ones) as a means of winning over the public. Other exhibits cover the “Aryanization” of Jewish businesses (they were simply taken over by the state and handed over to new Aryan owners); Hitler’s plans for converting Berlin into a gigantic “Welthauptstadt (World Capital) Germania”; and the postwar Berlin Airlift, which brought provisions to some 2.2 million West Berliners whose supply lines were cut off by East Berlin.
With more time, explore the grounds around the blocky building on a “Site Tour.” Posted signs (and the audioguide) explain 15 different locations, including the scant remains of the prison cellars.
• Backtrack to Niederkirchnerstrasse. Opposite the Wall remnant is one end of the huge...
The only major Hitler-era government building that survived the war’s bombs, this once housed the headquarters of the Nazi Luftwaffe (Air Force). The whole building gives off a monumental feel, making the average person feel small and powerless. After the war, this was the headquarters for the Soviet occupation. Later the DDR was founded here, and the communists used the building to house their—no joke—Ministry of Ministries.
Walk up Wilhelmstrasse (to the north) to see an entry gate (on your left) that looks much like it did when Germany occupied nearly all of Europe. This courtyard is often used by movie producers needing a Nazi set.
On the north side of the building (farther up Wilhelmstrasse, under the portico at the corner with Leipziger Strasse) is a wonderful example of communist art. The mural, Max Lingner’s Aufbau der Republik (Building the Republic, 1953), is classic Socialist Realism, showing the entire society—industrial laborers, farm workers, women, and children—all happily singing the same patriotic song. Its subtitle: “The importance of peace for the cultural development of humanity and the necessity of struggle to achieve this goal.” This was the communist ideal. For the reality, look at the ground in the courtyard in front of the mural to see an enlarged photograph from a 1953 uprising here against the communists...quite a contrast. Placards explain the events of 1953 in English.
• Retrace your steps to the Niederkirchnerstrasse intersection and hook left onto Zimmerstrasse. Continue for a block past several “Ost-algic” business ventures: vendors of DDR soft ice-cream, Trabi World (renting rides in iconic DDR tin-can cars), and the Wall Panorama Exhibition (not worth the entry fee, as it’s just huge photos). You’ll wind up at...
This famous Cold War checkpoint was not named for a person, but for its checkpoint number—as in Alpha (#1, at the East-West German border, a hundred miles west of here), Bravo (#2, as you enter Berlin proper), and Charlie (#3, the best known because most foreigners passed through here). While the actual checkpoint has long since been dismantled, its former location is home to a fine museum and a mock-up of the original border crossing. The area has become a Cold War freak show and—as if celebrating the final victory of crass capitalism—is one of Berlin’s worst tourist traps. A McDonald’s stands defiantly overlooking the former haunt of East German border guards. (For a more sober and intellectually redeeming look at the Wall’s history, head for the Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse.)
The rebuilt guard station now hosts two actors playing American guards who pose for photos. Notice the larger-than-life posters of a young American soldier facing east and a young Soviet soldier facing west. (Look carefully at the “Soviet” soldier. He was photographed in 1999, a decade after there were Soviet soldiers stationed here. He’s a Dutch model. His uniform is a nonsensical pile of pins and ribbons with a Russian flag on his shoulder.)
A photo exhibit stretches up and down Zimmerstrasse, with great English descriptions telling the story of the Wall. While you could get this information from a book, it’s certainly a different experience to stand here in person and ponder the gripping history of this place.
A few yards away (on Zimmerstrasse), a glass panel describes the former checkpoint. From there, another double row of cobbles in Zimmerstrasse shows the former path of the Wall.
Warning: Here and in other places, hustlers charge an exorbitant €10 for a full set of Cold War-era stamps in your passport. Don’t be tempted. Technically, this invalidates your passport—which has caused some tourists big problems.
• Overlooking the chaos of the street scene is the...
While the famous border checkpoint between the American and Soviet sectors is long gone, its memory is preserved by one of Europe’s most cluttered museums. During the Cold War, the House at Checkpoint Charlie stood defiantly—within spitting distance of the border guards—showing off all the clever escapes over, under, and through the Wall. Today, while the drama is over and hunks of the Wall stand like trophies at its door, the museum survives as a living artifact of the Cold War days. The yellowed descriptions, which have scarcely changed since that time, tinge the museum with nostalgia. It’s dusty, disorganized, and overpriced, with lots of reading involved, but all that just adds to this museum’s borderline-kitschy charm. If you’re pressed for time, visit after dinner, when most other museums are closed.
Cost and Hours: €12.50, assemble 20 tourists and get in for €8.50 each, €3.50 audioguide, daily 9:00-22:00, U6 to Kochstrasse or—better from Zoo—U2 to Stadtmitte, Friedrichstrasse 43, tel. 030/253-7250, www.mauermuseum.de.
Visiting the Museum: Exhibits narrate a gripping history of the Wall, with a focus on the many ingenious escape attempts (the early years—with a cruder wall—saw more escapes). You’ll see the actual items used to smuggle would-be Wessies: a VW bug whose trunk hid a man, two side-by-side suitcases into which a woman squeezed, a makeshift zip line for crossing over (rather than through) the border, a hot-air balloon in which two families floated to safety, an inflatable boat that puttered across the dangerous Baltic Sea, primitive homemade aircraft, two surfboards hollowed out to create just enough space for a refugee, and more. One chilling exhibit lists some 43,000 people who died in “Internal Affairs” internment camps during the transition to communism (1945-1950). Profiles personalize various escapees and their helpers, including John P. Ireland, an American who posed as an eccentric antiques collector so he could transport 10 refugees to safety in his modified Cadillac.
You’ll also see artwork inspired by the Wall and its fall, and a memorial to Rainer Hildebrandt, who founded this museum shortly after the Wall went up in 1961. On the top floor (easy to miss), the exhibits broaden to the larger themes of freedom and persecution, including Eastern European rebellions (the 1956 uprising in Hungary, 1968’s Prague Spring, and the Solidarity movement in 1980s Poland) and Gandhi’s protests in India. Fans of the “Gipper” appreciate the room honoring President Ronald Reagan, displaying his actual cowboy hat and boots. The small movie theater shows various Wall-related films (a schedule is posted), and the displays include video coverage of those heady days when people-power tore down the Wall.
This museum is one of Europe’s best Jewish sights. The highly conceptual building is a sight in itself, and the museum inside—an overview of the rich culture and history of Europe’s Jewish community—is excellent, particularly if you take advantage of the informative and engaging audioguide. Rather than just reading dry texts, you’ll feel this museum as fresh and alive—an exuberant celebration of the Jewish experience that’s accessible to all. Even though the museum is in a nondescript residential neighborhood, it’s well worth the trip.
The 96-mile-long “Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart”—as the Berlin Wall was called by the East German government—was erected almost overnight in 1961. It was intended to stop the outward flow of people from East to West: Three million had leaked out between 1949 and 1961. The Wall (Mauer) was actually two walls; the outer one, directly facing the West, was a 12-foot-high concrete barrier whose rounded, pipe-like top (to discourage grappling hooks) was adorned with plenty of barbed wire. Sandwiched between the walls was a no-man’s-land “death strip” between 30 and 160 feet wide. More than 100 sentry towers kept a close eye on the Wall. On their way into the death strip, would-be escapees tripped a silent alarm, which alerted sharpshooters.
During the Wall’s 28 years, border guards fired 1,693 times and made 3,221 arrests, and there were 5,043 documented successful escapes (565 of these were East German guards). At least 138 people died or were killed at the Wall while trying to escape.
As a tangible symbol for the Cold War, the Berlin Wall got a lot of attention from politicians, both East and West. Two of the 20th century’s most repeated presidential quotes were uttered within earshot of the death strip. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy professed American solidarity with the struggling people of Berlin: “Ich bin ein Berliner.” A generation later in 1987, with the stiff winds of change already blowing westward from Moscow, President Ronald Reagan issued an ultimatum to his Soviet counterpart: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
The actual fall of the Wall had less to do with presidential proclamations than with the obvious failings of the Soviet system, a general thawing in Moscow (where Gorbachev introduced perestroika and glasnost, and declared that he would no longer employ force to keep Eastern European satellite states under Soviet rule), the brave civil-disobedience actions of many ordinary citizens behind the Wall—and a bureaucratic snafu.
By November 1989, change was in the air. Hungary had already opened its borders to the West that summer, making it next to impossible for East German authorities to keep people in. Anti-regime protests had swept nearby Leipzig a few weeks earlier, attracting hundreds of thousands of supporters. On October 7, 1989—the 40th anniversary of the creation of the DDR—East German premier Erich Honecker said, “The Wall will be standing in 50 and even in 100 years.” He was only off by 99 years and 11 months. A similar rally in East Berlin’s Alexanderplatz on November 4—with a half-million protesters chanting, “Wir wollen raus!” (We want out!)—persuaded the East German politburo to begin a gradual process of relaxing travel restrictions.
The DDR’s intention was to slightly crack the door to the West, but an inarticulate spokesman’s confusion inadvertently threw it wide open. In back-room meetings early on Thursday, November 9, officials decided they would allow a few more Easterners to cross into the West—a symbolic reform that was intended to take place gradually. The politburo members then left town early for a long weekend. The announcement of the decision was left to a spokesman, one Günter Schabowski, who knew only what was on a piece of paper handed to him moments before he went on TV for a routine press conference. At 18:54, Schabowski read the statement dutifully, with little emotion, seemingly oblivious to the massive impact of his own words: “exit via border crossings...possible for every citizen.” Reporters, unable to believe what they were hearing, prodded him about when the borders would open. Schabowski looked with puzzlement at the brief statement, shrugged, and offered his best guess: “Ab sofort, unverzüglich.” (“Immediately, without delay.”)
Schabowski’s words spread like wildfire through the streets of both Berlins, its flames fanned by West German TV broadcasts (and NBC’s Tom Brokaw). East Berliners began to show up at Wall checkpoints, demanding that border guards let them pass. As the crowds grew, the guards could not reach anyone who could issue official orders. Finally, around 23:30, a border guard named Harald Jäger at the Bornholmer Strasse crossing decided to simply open the gates. Easterners flooded into the West, embracing their long-separated cousins, unable to believe their good fortune. Once open, the Wall could never be closed again.
The carnival atmosphere of those first years after the Wall fell is gone, but hawkers still sell “authentic” pieces of the Wall, DDR flags, and military paraphernalia to gawking tourists. When it fell, the Wall was literally carried away by the euphoria. What managed to survive has been nearly devoured by decades of persistent “Wall-peckers.”
Americans—the Cold War victors—seem to have the biggest appetite for Wall-related sights, and a few bits and pieces remain for us to seek out. Berlin’s best Wall-related sights are the Berlin Wall Memorial along Bernauer Strasse, with a long stretch of surviving Wall (see here), and the Museum of the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie (see here). Other stretches of the Wall still standing include the short section at Niederkirchnerstrasse/Wilhelmstrasse (near the Topography of Terror exhibit; here), in the Mauerpark in Prenzlauer Berg, and the longer East Side Gallery (near the Ostbahnhof; here).
Cost and Hours: €8, daily 10:00-20:00, Mon until 22:00, last entry one hour before closing, closed on Jewish holidays. Tight security includes bag check and metal detectors. The excellent €3 audioguide—with four hours of commentary—is essential to fully appreciate the exhibits. Tel. 030/2599-3300, www.jmberlin.de.
Getting There: Take the U-Bahn to Hallesches Tor, find the exit marked Jüdisches Museum, exit straight ahead, then turn right on Franz-Klühs-Strasse. The museum is a five-minute walk ahead on your left, at Lindenstrasse 9.
Eating: The museum’s restaurant, Café Schmus, offers good Jewish-style meals, albeit not kosher (daily 10:00-20:00, Mon until 22:00).
Visiting the Museum: Designed by American architect Daniel Libeskind (the master planner for the redeveloped World Trade Center in New York), the zinc-walled building has a zigzag shape pierced by voids symbolic of the irreplaceable cultural loss caused by the Holocaust. Enter the 18th-century Baroque building next door, then go through an underground tunnel to reach the museum interior.
Before you reach the exhibit, your visit starts with three memorial spaces. Follow the Axis of Exile to a disorienting slanted garden with 49 pillars (evocative of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, across town). Next, the Axis of Holocaust, lined with artifacts from Jews imprisoned and murdered by the Nazis, leads to an eerily empty tower shut off from the outside world. The Axis of Continuity takes you to stairs and the main exhibit. A detour partway up the long stairway leads to the Memory Void, a compelling space of “fallen leaves”: heavy metal faces that you walk on, making unhuman noises with each step.
Finish climbing the stairs to the top of the museum, and stroll chronologically through the 2,000-year story of Judaism in Germany. The exhibit, on two floors, is engaging, with lots of actual artifacts. Interactive bits (you can, for example, spell your name in Hebrew, or write a prayer and hang it from a tree) make it lively for kids. English explanations interpret both the exhibits and the design of the very symbolic building.
The top floor focuses on everyday life in Ashkenaz (medieval German-Jewish lands). The nine-minute movie A Thousand Years Ago sets the stage for your journey through Jewish history. You’ll learn what garlic had to do with early Jews in Germany (hint: It’s not just about cooking). The Middle Ages were a positive time for Jewish culture, which flourished then in many areas of Europe. But around 1500, many Jews were expelled from the countryside and moved into cities. Viewing stations let you watch nine short, lively videos that pose provocative questions about faith. Moses Mendelssohn’s role in the late-18th-century Jewish Enlightenment, which gave rise to Reform Judaism, is highlighted. The Tradition and Change exhibit analyzes how various subgroups of the Jewish faith modified and relaxed their rules to adapt to a changing world.
Downstairs, on the middle floor, exhibits detail the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Germany through the 19th century—at a time when many Jews were so secularized that they celebrated Christmas right along with Hanukkah. Berlin’s glory days (1890-1933) were a boom time for many Jews, though it was at times challenging to reconcile the reformed ways of the more assimilated western (German) Jews with the more traditional Eastern European Jews. The exhibit segues into the dark days of Hitler—the collapse of the relatively tolerant Weimar Republic, the rise of the Nazis, and the horrific night of November 9, 1938, when, throughout Germany, hateful mobs destroyed Jewish-owned businesses, homes, synagogues, and even entire villages—called “Crystal Night” (Kristallnacht) for the broken glass that glittered in the streets.
The display brings us to the present day, with the question: How do you keep going after six million of your people have been murdered? You’ll see how German society reacted to the two largest Nazi trials, complete with historical film clips of the perpetrators. In the last segment, devoted to Jewish life today, German Jews describe their experiences growing up in the postwar years.
This district—once abutting the dreary Wall and inhabited mostly by poor Turkish guest laborers and their families—is still run-down, with graffiti-riddled buildings and plenty of student and Turkish street life. It offers a gritty look at melting-pot Berlin, in a city where original Berliners are as rare as old buildings. Berlin is the largest Turkish city outside of Turkey itself, and Kreuzberg is its “downtown.” But to call it a “little Istanbul” insults the big one. You’ll see Döner Kebab stands, shops decorated with spray paint, and mothers wrapped in colorful scarves. Lately, an influx of immigrants from many other countries has diluted the Turkish-ness of Kreuzberg. For the most colorful experience, visit on Tuesday or Friday between 11:00 and 18:30, when the Turkish Market sprawls along Maybachufer street beside the Landwehr Canal. Take the U-Bahn to Kottbusser Tor and wander down Kottbusser Strasse, cross the canal, and turn left down Maybachufer.
This area is light on major sights but has some of Berlin’s trendiest, most interesting neighborhoods. I’ve listed these roughly from south to north, as you’d approach them from the city center. On a sunny day, a stroll (or tram ride) through these bursting-with-life areas can be as engaging as any museum in town.
This area, in front of the S-Bahn station of the same name, is a great people scene day and night. The brick trestle supporting the train track is a classic example of the city’s Brandenburg Neo-Gothic brickwork. Most of the brick archways are now filled with hip shops, which have official—and trendy—addresses such as “S-Bahn Arch #9, Hackescher Markt.” Within 100 yards of the S-Bahn station, you’ll find recommended Turkish and Bavarian restaurants, walking-tour and pub-crawl departure points, and tram #M1 to Prenzlauer Berg. Also nearby are two fascinating examples of Berlin’s traditional courtyards (Höfe)—one trendy and modern, the other retro-cool, with two fascinating museums.
A block in front of the Hackescher Markt S-Bahn station (at Rosenthaler Strasse 40) is a series of eight courtyards bunny-hopping through a wonderfully restored 1907 Jugendstil (German Art Nouveau) building. Berlin’s apartments are organized like this—courtyard after courtyard leading off the main road. This complex is full of artsy designer shops, popular restaurants (including the recommended Turkish eatery, Hasir), theaters, and cinemas. Courtyard #5 is particularly charming, with a children’s park, and an Ampelmann store. This courtyard system is a wonderful example of how to make huge city blocks livable. Two decades after the Cold War, this area has reached the final evolution of East Berlin’s urban restoration: total gentrification. These courtyards also offer a useful lesson for visitors: Much of Berlin’s charm hides off the street front.
Next door (at Rosenthaler Strasse 39), this courtyard has a totally different feel. Owned by an artists’ collective, it comes with a bar, cinema, open-air art space (reminiscent of mid-1990s eastern Berlin), and the basement-level “Dead Chickens” gallery (with far-out hydro-powered art). Its Café Cinema is one of the last remaining ’90s bohemian-chic bars. And within this amazing little zone you’ll find two inspirational museums. The Museum of Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind (Museum Blindenwerkstatt Otto Weidt) vividly tells the amazing story of a Berliner heroically protecting blind and deaf Jews during World War II (free, daily 10:00-20:00). Otto Weidt employed them to produce brooms and brushes, and because that was useful for the Nazi war machine, he managed to finagle a special status for his workers. You can see the actual brushmaking factory with pedal-powered machines still lined up. The exhibits are described well (in English and Braille), and there’s a good intro video and free audioguide. The Silent Heroes Memorial Center (Gedenkstätte Stille Helden) is a well-presented exhibit celebrating the quietly courageous individuals who resisted the persecution of the Jews from 1933 to 1945 (free, daily 10:00-20:00). (A third museum here, the Anne Frank Center, is primarily geared toward kids...and offers almost no history on Berlin itself.)
As you wander through the Hackesche Höfe and Oranienburger Strasse neighborhoods—and throughout Europe—you might stumble over small brass plaques in the sidewalk called Stolpersteine. Stolpern means “to stumble,” which is what you are meant to do. These plaques mark the former homes of Jewish and other WWII victims of the Nazis. The Stolpersteine are meant not only to honor and personalize the victims, but also to stimulate thought and discussion. In addition, they’re a meaningful rebuke to a prewar slur: When non-Jews tripped on a protruding rock or cobble, it was the custom among some Germans to say, “A Jew must be buried here.” The Stolpersteine turn this idiom around, creating individual monuments to those who have no graves to mark their unjust deaths.
More than 50,000 of these plaques have been installed across Europe, mostly in Germany. They’re made of brass so they stay polished as you walk over them. On each plaque is the name of the victim who lived in that spot, and how and where that person died. While some Holocaust memorials formerly used neutral terminology like “perished,” now they use words like “murdered” (ermordet)—part of the very honest way in which today’s Germans are dealing with their country’s past. Installation of a Stolperstein can be sponsored for €120 and has become popular in schools, where students research the memorialized person’s life as a class project.
Oranienburger Strasse, a few blocks west of Hackescher Markt, is anchored by an important and somber sight, the New Synagogue. But the rest of this zone (roughly between the synagogue and Torstrasse) is colorful and quirky—especially after dark. The streets behind Grosse Hamburger Strasse flicker with atmospheric cafés, Kneipen (pubs), and art galleries. At night (from about 20:00), techno-prostitutes line Oranienburger Strasse. Prostitution is legal throughout Germany. Prostitutes pay taxes and receive health care insurance like anyone else. On this street, they hire security guards (lingering nearby) for safety. The sex workers all seem to buy their Barbarella wardrobes—notice the uniforms complete with matching fanny packs—at the same place.
A shiny gilded dome marks the New Synagogue, now a museum and cultural center. Consecrated in 1866, this was once the biggest and finest synagogue in Germany, with seating for 3,200 worshippers and a sumptuous Moorish-style interior modeled after the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. It was desecrated by Nazis on Crystal Night (Kristallnacht) in 1938, bombed in 1943, and partially rebuilt in 1990. Only the dome and facade have been restored—a window overlooks the vacant field marking what used to be the synagogue. On its facade, a small plaque—added by East Berlin Jews in 1966—reads “Never forget” (Vergesst es nie). At that time East Berlin had only a few hundred Jews, but now that the city is reunited, the Jewish community numbers about 12,000.
Inside, past tight security, the small but moving permanent exhibit called Open Ye the Gates describes the Berlin Jewish community through the centuries (filling three big rooms on the ground floor and first floor, with some good English descriptions). Examine the cutaway model showing the entire synagogue and an exhibit of religious items. Stairs lead up (past temporary exhibits, with a separate entry fee) to the dome, where there’s not much to see except the unimpressive-from-the-inside dome itself and ho-hum views—not worth the entry price or the climb.
Cost and Hours: Main exhibit-€5, dome-€3, combo-ticket for both-€6, temporary exhibits-€3, April-Oct Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sun until 19:00; Oct-March exhibit only Sun-Thu 10:00-18:00, Fri until 15:00; closed Sat year-round; audioguide-€3, Oranienburger Strasse 28/30, enter through the low-profile door in the modern building just right of the domed synagogue facade, S-Bahn: Oranienburger Strasse, tel. 030/8802-8300 and press 1, www.cjudaicum.de.
Eating: Next door to the New Synagogue (to the left as you face it) is every local kid’s favorite traditional candy shop, Bonbonmacherei, where you can see candy being made the old-fashioned way (Wed-Sat 12:00-19:00, closed Sun-Tue and often July-Aug, at Oranienburger Strasse 32, in the Heckmann Höfe—another classic Berlin courtyard). And just around the corner and down the street from the synagogue, you’ll find the fully kosher Beth Café (closed Sat, Tucholskystrasse 40).
Nearby: A block from the synagogue (to the right as you face it), walk 50 yards down Grosse Hamburger Strasse to a little park. This street was known for 200 years as the “street of tolerance” because the Jewish community donated land to Protestants so they could build a church. Hitler turned it into the “street of death” (Todesstrasse), bulldozing 12,000 graves of the city’s oldest Jewish cemetery and turning a Jewish nursing home into a deportation center. Because of the small but growing radical Islamic element in Berlin, and a smattering of persistent neo-Nazis, several police officers and an Israeli secret agent keep watch over the Jewish high school nearby.
This crisp, private enterprise (in a former Jewish girls’ school building that survived the war) delightfully recalls John F. Kennedy’s 1963 Germany trip with great photos and video clips as well as a photographic shrine to the Kennedy clan in America. Among the interesting mementos are old campaign buttons and posters, and JFK’s notes with the phonetic pronunciation “Ish bin ein Bearleener.” Jacqueline Kennedy commented on how strange it was that this—not even in his native language—was her husband’s most quotable quote. The highlight: a theater where you can watch a newsreel of Kennedy’s historic speech (20 minutes, plays continuously).
Cost and Hours: €5, Tue-Sun 11:00-19:00, closed Mon, tel. 030/2065-3570, www.thekennedys.de. From Oranienburger Strasse, go a block up Tucholskystrasse and turn right to find the dark-brick building three doors down at Auguststrasse 13 (doors may be closed but walk right in through entryway, then head to the right and up two floors).
Young, in-the-know locals agree that Prenzlauer Berg is one of Berlin’s most colorful neighborhoods. The heart of this area, with a dense array of hip cafés, restaurants, boutiques, and street life, is roughly between Helmholtzplatz and Kollwitzplatz and along Kastanienallee (U2: Senefelderplatz and Eberswalder Strasse; or take the S-Bahn to Hackescher Markt and catch tram #M1 north).
“Prenzl’berg,” as Berliners call it, was largely untouched during World War II, but its buildings slowly rotted away under the communists. Then, after the Wall fell, it was overrun first with artists and anarchists, then with laid-back hipsters, energetic young families, and clever entrepreneurs who breathed life back into its classic old apartment blocks, deserted factories, and long-forgotten breweries.
Years of rent control kept things affordable for its bohemian residents. But now landlords are free to charge what the market will bear, and the vibe is changing. This is ground zero for Berlin’s baby boom: Tattooed and pierced young moms and dads, who’ve joined the modern rat race without giving up their alternative flair, push their youngsters in designer strollers past trendy boutiques and restaurants.
Aside from the Berlin Wall Memorial at its western edge (see below), the neighborhood has few real sights—just a lively, laid-back neighborhood ignoring its wonderful late-19th-century architecture high overhead. The intersection of Oderberger Strasse and Kastanienallee is a typically convivial bit of Prenzlauer Berg to explore.
If you walk west to the end of Oderberger Strasse, you’ll hit the Mauerpark (Wall Park). Once part of the Wall’s death strip, today it’s a Prenzlauer Berg green space—an alternative promenade. The park is particularly entertaining on Sundays, when it hosts a rummage market and a giant karaoke party. Along the bluff runs a bit of the Wall covered in graffiti art. Just beyond that is the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark stadium from DDR times, built to host the World Youth Festival in 1951 and still marked by its original bombastic light towers (even light towers were designed to stir young communist souls). To the southwest are the outdoor exhibits of the Berlin Wall Memorial.
Berliners have a strong sense of community. They manage this in a big city by enjoying a strong neighborhood identity in areas like Prenzlauer Berg. But there is some tension these days, as locals complain about cafés and bars catering to yuppies sipping prosecco, while working-class and artistic types are being priced out.
While it has changed plenty, I find Prenzlauer Berg a celebration of life and a joy to stroll through. It’s a fun area to explore, people-watch, shop, have a meal or spend the night.
While tourists flock to Checkpoint Charlie, this memorial is Berlin’s most substantial attraction relating to its gone-but-not-forgotten Wall. Exhibits line up along several blocks of Bernauer Strasse, stretching northeast from the Nordbahnhof S-Bahn station. You can enter two different museums plus various open-air exhibits and memorials, see several fragments of the Wall, and peer from an observation tower down into a preserved, complete stretch of the Wall system (as it was during the Cold War).
The Berlin Wall, which was erected virtually overnight in 1961, ran right along Bernauer Strasse. People were suddenly separated from their neighbors across the street. This stretch was particularly notorious because existing apartment buildings were incorporated into the structure of the Wall itself. Film footage and photographs from the era show Berliners worriedly watching workmen seal off these buildings from the West, brick by brick. Some people attempted to leap to freedom from upper-story windows, with mixed results. One of the unfortunate ones was Ida Siekmann, who fell to her death from her third-floor apartment on August 22, 1961, and is considered the first casualty of the Berlin Wall.
Cost and Hours: Free; Visitor Center and Documentation Center open Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, closed Mon, outdoor areas accessible 24 hours daily, memorial chapel closes at 17:00; Bernauer Strasse 111, tel. 030/4679-86666, www.berliner-mauer-gedenkstaette.de.
Getting There: Take the S-Bahn (line S-1, S-2, or S-25—all handy from Potsdamer Platz, Brandenburger Tor, Friedrichstrasse, Oranienburger Strasse, or Hackescher Markt) to the Nordbahnhof. The Nordbahnhof’s underground hallways have history exhibits in English (explained later). Exit by following signs for Bernauer Strasse. You’ll pop out across the street from a long chunk of Wall and kitty-corner from the Visitor Center.
Visiting the Memorial: From the Nordbahnhof station (which has some interesting Wall history in itself), head first to the Visitor Center to get your bearings, then explore the assorted Wall fragments and other sights in the park across the street. Work your way up Bernauer Strasse to the Documentation Center, Wall System, memorial chapel, and remaining signposts (look for the escape-tunnel paths marked in the grass), until you reach the Bernauer Strasse U-Bahn station (or continue beyond the U-Bahn stop to see all the outdoor exhibits, which stretch up to the Mauerpark).
Nordbahnhof: This S-Bahn station was one of the “ghost stations” of Cold War Berlin. It was built in 1926, closed in 1961, and opened again in 1989. As it was a dogleg of the East mostly surrounded by the West, Western subway trains had permission to use the underground tracks to zip through this station (without stopping, of course) en route between stops in the West. Posted information boards show photos comparing 1989 with 2009, and explain that East German border guards, who were stationed here to ensure that nobody got on or off those trains, were locked into their surveillance rooms to prevent them from escaping. (But one subway employee and his family used the tunnels to walk to the West and freedom.)
Follow signs down a long yellow hall to Bernauer Strasse. Climbing the stairs up to the Bernauer Strasse exit, ponder that the doorway at the top of these stairs (marked by the Sperrmauer 1961-1989 plaque) was a bricked-off no-man’s-land just 26 years ago. Stepping outside, you’ll see a park full of outdoor exhibits (directly across the street) and the Visitor Center (in a low rust-colored building kitty-corner across the street).
Visitor Center (Bezucherzentrum): This small complex has a helpful information desk, and two good movies that provide context for a visit (they run in English at :30 after the hour, about 30 minutes for the whole spiel): The Berlin Wall offers a great 15-minute overview of its history. That’s followed by Walled In!, an animated 12-minute film illustrating the Wall as it functioned here at Bernauer Strasse. Before leaving, pick up the brochures explaining the outdoor exhibits.
Wall Fragments and Other Sights: Across the street from the Visitor Center is a long stretch of Wall. The park behind it is scattered with a few more Wall chunks as well as monuments and memorials honoring its victims, with clumps of info-posts offering brief personal stories and bits of background information (most of it available in English). To get your bearings, find the small model of the entire area when the Wall still stood (just across the street from the Nordbahnhof). While most items are accompanied by English explanations, the brochure from the Visitor Center helps you better appreciate what you’re seeing. The rusty “Window of Remembrance” monument honors slain would-be escapees with their names, dates of death, and transparent photos that are viewable from both sides. Before it was the no-man’s-land between the walls, this area was the parish graveyard for a nearby church; ironically, DDR officials had to move a thousand graves from here to create a “death strip.”
Berlin Wall Documentation Center (Dokumentationszentrum Berliner Mauer): The center’s excellent exhibit, recently overhauled on the 25th anniversary of the Wall’s fall, is geared to a new generation of Berliners who can hardly imagine their hometown split so brutally in two. The ground floor details the logistics of the city’s division and its effects on Berliners. Have a seat and listen to the riveting personal accounts of escapees—and of the border guards armed with machine guns and tasked with stopping them. The next floor up gives the historical and political context behind the Wall’s construction and eventual destruction. Photos let you track the progression of changes at this exact site from 1965 to 1990.
Leaving the exhibit, climb the open-air staircase to an observation deck that gives you a bird’s-eye view of the last remaining stretch of the complete wall system—guard tower, barbed wire, and all.
Stretch of Intact Wall System: This is the last surviving intact bit of the complete “Wall system” (with both sides of its Wall—capped by the round pipe that made it tougher for escapees to get a grip—and its no-man’s-land death strip). The guard tower came from a different part of the Wall; it was actually purchased on that great capitalist invention, eBay (somewhere, Stalin spins in his grave). View it from the observation deck, then visit it from ground level, where wall panels explain each part of the system. Plaques along the sidewalk mark the locations of escapes or deaths.
Chapel of Reconciliation (Kapelle der Versöhnung): Just beyond the Wall section (to the left), this chapel marks the spot of the late-19th-century Church of Reconciliation, which survived WWII bombs—but not the communists. Notice the larger footprint of the original church in the field around the chapel. When the Wall was built, the church wound up right in the middle of the death strip. It was torn down in 1985, supposedly because it got in the way of the border guards’ sight lines. (This coincided with a period in which anti-DDR opposition movements were percolating in Christian churches, prompting the atheistic regime to destroy several houses of worship.) Inside the church, the carved wooden altarpiece was saved from the original structure. The chapel hosts daily prayer services for the victims of the Wall.
Outdoor Exhibits: The memorial also includes a string of open-air exhibits along Bernauer Strasse that stretch all the way from the Nordbahnhof to the intersection with Schwedter Strasse and Oderberger Strasse, near the Mauerpark, at the heart of Prenzlauer Berg. Video and audio clips, photos, and huge photographic murals let you in on more stories of the Wall—many of which took place right where you’re standing.
The buildings along Karl-Marx-Allee in East Berlin (just beyond Alexanderplatz) were completely leveled by the Red Army in 1945. As an expression of their adoration to the “great Socialist Father” (Stalin), the DDR government decided to rebuild the street better than ever (the USSR provided generous subsidies). They intentionally made it one meter wider than the Champs-Elysées, named it Stalinallee, and lined it with “workers’ palaces” built in the bold “Stalin Gothic” style so common in Moscow in the 1950s. Now renamed after Karl Marx, the street and its restored buildings provide a rare look at Berlin’s communist days. Distances are a bit long for convenient walking, but you can cruise Karl-Marx-Allee by taxi, or ride the U-Bahn to Strausberger Platz (which was built to resemble an Italian promenade) and walk to Frankfurter Tor, reading the good information posts along the way. Notice the Social Realist reliefs on the buildings and the lampposts, which incorporate the wings of a phoenix (rising from the ashes) in their design. Once a “workers’ paradise,” the street now hosts a two-mile-long capitalist beer festival the first weekend in August.
The Café Sibylle, just beyond the Strausberger Platz U-Bahn station, is a fun spot for a coffee, traditional DDR ice-cream treats, and a look at its free informal museum that tells the story of the most destroyed street in Berlin. While the humble exhibit is nearly all in German, it’s fun to see the ear (or buy a plaster replica) and half a moustache from what was the largest statue of Stalin in Germany (the centerpiece of the street until 1961). It also provides a few intimate insights into apartment life in a DDR flat. The café is known for its good coffee and Schwedeneisbecher mit Eierlikor—an ice-cream sundae with a shot of egg liqueur, popular among those nostalgic for communism (daily 10:00-20:00, Karl-Marx-Allee 72, at intersection with Koppenstrasse, a block from U-Bahn: Strausberger Platz, tel. 030/2935-2203).
Heading out to Karl-Marx-Allee (just beyond the TV Tower), you’re likely to notice a giant colorful mural decorating a blocky communist-era skyscraper. This was the Ministry of Education, and the mural is a tile mosaic trumpeting the accomplishments of the DDR’s version of “No Child Left Behind.”
This modest exhibit tells the story of how the communist-era Ministry for State Security (Staatssicherheit, a.k.a. Stasi)—headquartered in these very buildings—infiltrated all aspects of German life. Soon after the Wall fell, DDR authorities scrambled to destroy the copious illicit information their agents and informants had collected about the people of East Germany. But the government mandated that these records be preserved as evidence of DDR crimes, and the documents are now managed by the Federal Commissioner for Stasi Records.
Cost and Hours: €6, Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-18:00, Ruscherstrasse 103, U5: Magdalenenstrasse, tel. 030/553-6854, www.stasimuseum.de.
Other Stasi Sights: If you’re particularly keen you can trek a bit north to the Stasi Prison, where “enemies of the state” served time (€5, visits possible only with tour; English tours daily at 14:30, April-Oct also at 11:30—call to confirm before making the trip; German tours usually hourly; Genslerstrasse 66, reachable via tram from downtown—see website for specifics, tel. 030/9860-8230, www.stiftung-hsh.de). There’s also a good Stasi Museum in the former State Security branch in Leipzig, an easy day trip from Berlin.
The biggest remaining stretch of the Wall is now the “world’s longest outdoor art gallery.” It stretches for nearly a mile and is covered with murals painted by artists from around the world. The murals (classified as protected monuments) got a facelift in 2009, when the city invited the original artists back to re-create their work for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall. This segment of the Wall makes a poignant walk. For a quick look, take the S-Bahn to the Ostbahnhof station (follow signs to Stralauerplatz exit; once outside, TV Tower will be to your right; go left and at next corner look to your right—the Wall is across the busy street). The gallery, located on the southern end of the quickly gentrifying Friedrichshain neighborhood, is slowly being consumed by developers. If you walk the entire length of the East Side Gallery, you’ll find a small Wall souvenir shop at the end and a bridge crossing the river to a subway station at Schlesisches Tor (in Kreuzberg). The bridge, a fine example of Brandenburg Neo-Gothic brickwork, has a fun neon “rock, paper, scissors” installment poking fun at the futility of the Cold War (visible only after dark). For the history of the East Side Gallery, see www.eastsidegallery.com.
Berlin’s “Central Park” stretches two miles from Bahnhof Zoo to the Brandenburg Gate.
The Tiergarten’s centerpiece, the Victory Column, was built to commemorate the Prussian defeat of Denmark in 1864...then reinterpreted after the defeat of France in 1870. The pointy-helmeted Germans rubbed it in, decorating the tower with French cannons and paying for it all with francs received as war reparations. The three lower rings commemorate Bismarck’s victories. I imagine the statues of German military greats—which lurk among the trees nearby—goose-stepping around the floodlit angel at night.
Originally standing at the Reichstag, in 1938 the tower was moved to this position and given a 25-foot lengthening by Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer, in anticipation of the planned re-envisioning of Berlin as “Welthauptstadt Germania”—the capital of a worldwide Nazi empire. Streets leading to the circle are flanked by surviving Nazi guardhouses, built in the stern style that fascists loved. At the memorial’s first level, notice how WWII bullets chipped the fine marble columns. From 1989 to 2003, the column was the epicenter of the Love Parade (Berlin’s city-wide techno-hedonist street party), and it was the backdrop for Barack Obama’s summer 2008 visit to Germany as a presidential candidate.
Climbing its 270 steps earns you a breathtaking Berlin-wide view and a close-up of the gilded bronze statue of the goddess Victoria. You might recognize Victoria from Wim Wenders’ 1987 art-house classic Wings of Desire, or the Stay (Faraway, So Close!) video he directed for the rock band U2.
Cost and Hours: Free to view from outside, €3 to climb, daily April-Oct 9:30-18:30, until 19:00 Sat-Sun, Nov-March 10:00-17:00, closes in the rain, no elevator, bus #100, tel. 030/391-2961.
This memorial and museum, located in the former Bendlerblock military headquarters just south of the Tiergarten, tells the story of several organized German resistance movements and the more than 42 separate assassination attempts against Hitler. While the exhibit has no real artifacts, the building itself is important: One of the most thoroughly planned schemes to kill Hitler was plotted here (the actual attempt occurred in Rastenburg, eastern Prussia). That attempt failed and several leaders of the conspiracy, including Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, were shot here in the courtyard.
Cost and Hours: Free, Mon-Fri 9:00-18:00, Thu until 20:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, free and good English audioguide, €4 printed English translation, no crowds; near Kulturforum at Stauffenbergstrasse 13, enter in courtyard, door on left, main exhibit on second floor up; bus #M29, tel. 030/2699-5000, www.gdw-berlin.de.
The “Times Square of Berlin,” and possibly the busiest square in Europe before World War II, Potsdamer Platz was cut in two by the Wall and left a deserted no-man’s-land for 40 years. Today, this immense commercial/residential/entertainment center, sitting on a futuristic transportation hub, is home to the European headquarters of several big-league companies.
The new Potsdamer Platz was a vision begun in 1991, the year that Germany’s parliament voted to relocate the seat of government to Berlin. Since then, Sony, Daimler, and other major corporations have turned the square once again into a city center. Like great Christian churches built upon pagan holy grounds, Potsdamer Platz—with its corporate logos flying high and shiny above what was the Wall—trumpets the triumph of capitalism.
Though Potsdamer Platz had been envisioned as a new common center for Berlin, the city has always been—and remains—a scattered collection of towns. Locals recognize 28 distinct neighborhoods that may have grown together but still maintain their historic orientation. While Munich has the single dominant Marienplatz, Berlin will always have Charlottenburg, Savignyplatz, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg, and so on. In general, Berliners prefer these characteristic neighborhoods to an official city center. They’re unimpressed by the grandeur of Potsdamer Platz, simply considering it a good place to go to the movies, with overpriced, touristy restaurants.
While most of the buildings here just feel big (the nearby shopping arcade is like any huge, modern, American mall), the Sony Center is worth at least a peek, and German-film buffs will enjoy the Deutsche Kinemathek museum (described later).
For an overview of the square and a scenic route to the Sony Center, start at the Bahnhof Potsdamer Platz (east end of Potsdamer Strasse, S-Bahn and U-Bahn: Potsdamer Platz, exit following Leipziger Platz signs to see the best view of skyscrapers as you emerge). Find the green hexagonal clock tower with the traffic lights on top. This is a replica of the first electronic traffic light in Europe, which once stood at the six-street intersection of Potsdamer Platz. (The traffic cops who stood with flag and trumpet in the middle of the intersection were getting hit by cars too routinely, so this perch was built for them.)
On either side of Potsdamer Strasse, you’ll see enormous cubical entrances to the underground Potsdamer Platz train station. Near these entrances, notice the slanted glass cylinders sticking out of the ground. Mirrors on the tops of the tubes move with the sun to collect light and send it underground (saving piles of euros in energy costs). Two subtle lines in the pavement indicate where the Berlin Wall once stood (they trace about 25 miles of the wall through the city). On the right side of the street, notice the re-erected slabs of the Wall. Imagine when the first piece was cut out (see photo and history on nearby panel). These hang like scalps at the gate of Fort Capitalism. Look up at the towering corporate headquarters: Market forces have won a clear victory. Now descend into one of the train station entrances and follow DB Zentrum, then Sony Center signs. As you walk through the passage, notice the wall panels with historical information.
You’ll come up the escalator into the Sony Center under a grand canopy (designed to evoke Mount Fuji). At night, multicolored floodlights play on the underside of this tent. Office workers and tourists eat here by the fountain, enjoying the parade of people. The modern Bavarian Lindenbräu beer hall—the Sony boss wanted a Brauhaus—serves traditional food. Across the plaza, Josty Bar is built around a surviving bit of a venerable hotel that was a meeting place for Berlin’s rich and famous before the bombs. CineStar is a rare cinema that plays mainstream movies in their original language (www.cinestar.de).
A huge screen above the Deutsche Kinemathek museum (left of Starbucks) shows big sporting events on special occasions. Otherwise it runs historic video clips of Potsdamer Platz through the decades.
This exhibit is the most interesting place to visit in the Sony Center. The early pioneers in filmmaking were German (including Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau, Ernst Lubitsch, and the Austrian-born Billy Wilder), and many of them also became influential in Hollywood—making this a fun visit for cinephiles. Your admission ticket gets you into several floors of exhibits (including temporary exhibits on floors 1 and 4) made meaningful by the essential English audioguide.
Cost and Hours: €7, free Thu 16:00-20:00, Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu until 20:00, closed Mon, audioguide-€2, tel. 030/300-9030, www.deutsche-kinemathek.de.
Visiting the Museum: From the ticket desk, ride the elevator up to the third floor, where you can turn left (into the film section, floors 3 and 2) or right (into the TV section, floors 3 and 4).
In the film section, you’ll walk back in time, starting with the German film industry’s beginnings, with an emphasis on the Weimar Republic period in the 1920s, when Berlin rivaled Hollywood. Influential films included the early German Expressionist masterpiece The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Fritz Lang’s seminal Metropolis (1927). Three rooms are dedicated to Marlene Dietrich, who was a huge star both in Germany and, later, in Hollywood. (Dietrich, who performed at USO shows to entertain Allied troops fighting against her former homeland, once said, “I don’t hate the Germans, I hate the Nazis.”) Another section examines Nazi use of film as propaganda, including Leni Riefenstahl’s masterful documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics and her earlier, chillingly propagandistic Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1935). The postwar period was defined by two separate East and West German film industries. The exhibit’s finale reminds us that German filmmakers are still highly influential and successful—including Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, Air Force One, The Perfect Storm) and Werner Herzog (documentaries such as Grizzly Man, and the drama Rescue Dawn). If a visit here gets you curious about German cinema, see the recommendations in the Appendix.
The TV section tells the story of das Idioten Box from its infancy (when it was primarily used as a Nazi propaganda tool) to today. The 30-minute kaleidoscopic review—kind of a frantic fast-forward montage of greatest hits in German TV history, both East and West—is great fun even if you don’t understand a word of it (it plays all day long, with 10-minute breaks). Otherwise, the TV section is a little more challenging for non-German speakers to appreciate. Upstairs (on the fourth floor) is a TV archive where you can dial through a wide range of new and classic German TV standards.
Nearby: The Kino Arsenal theater downstairs shows offbeat art-house films in their original language.
Across Potsdamer Strasse from the Deutsche Kinemathek museum, you can ride what’s billed as the “fastest elevator in Europe” to skyscraping rooftop views. You’ll travel at nearly 30 feet per second to the top of the 300-foot-tall Kollhoff Tower. Its sheltered but open-air view deck provides a fun opportunity to survey Berlin’s ongoing construction from above.
Cost and Hours: €6.50, €10.50 VIP ticket lets you skip the line, daily 10:00-20:00, until 18:00 in winter, last elevator 30 minutes before closing, in red-brick building at Potsdamer Platz 1, tel. 030/2593-7080, www.panoramapunkt.de.
Just west of Potsdamer Platz, Kulturforum rivals Museum Island as the city’s cultural heart, with several top museums and Berlin’s concert hall—home of the world-famous Berlin Philharmonic orchestra. Of its sprawling museums, only the Gemäldegalerie is a must. Its New National Gallery is closed through at least 2017.
Combo-Tickets: All Kulturforum sights are covered by a single €12 Bereichskarte Kulturforum combo-ticket—a.k.a. Quartier-Karte, www.kulturforum-berlin.de.
Getting There: Ride the S-Bahn or U-Bahn to Potsdamer Platz, then walk along Potsdamer Platz; from Bahnhof Zoo, you could take bus #200 to Philharmonie (a very slow trip during rush hour).
Literally the “Painting Gallery,” the Gemäldegalerie is Germany’s top collection of 13th- through 18th-century European paintings (more than 1,400 canvases). They’re beautifully displayed in a building that’s a work of art in itself. The North Wing starts with German paintings of the 13th to 16th century, including eight by Albrecht Dürer. Then come the Dutch and Flemish—Jan van Eyck, Pieter Brueghel, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Frans Hals, and Jan Vermeer. The wing finishes with German, English, and French 18th-century artists, such as Thomas Gainsborough and Antoine Watteau. An octagonal hall at the end features an impressive stash of Rembrandts. The South Wing is saved for the Italians—Giotto, Botticelli, Titian, Raphael, and Caravaggio.
Cost and Hours: €10, covered by Kulturforum combo-ticket, Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, Thu until 20:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-18:00, closed Mon, audioguide included with entry, clever little loaner stools, great salad bar in cafeteria upstairs, Matthäikirchplatz 4, tel. 030/266-424-242, www.smb.museum.
Self-Guided Tour: I’ll point out a few highlights, focusing on Northern European artists (German, Dutch, and Flemish), with a few Spaniards and Italians thrown in. To go beyond my selections, make ample use of the excellent audioguide.
The collection spreads out on one vast floor surrounding a central hall. Inner rooms have Roman numerals (I, II, III), while adjacent outer rooms are numbered (1, 2, 3). After showing your ticket, turn right into room I and work your way counterclockwise (and roughly chronologically) through the collection.
Rooms I-III/1-4 kick things off with early German paintings (13th-16th century). In Room 1, look for the 1532 portrait of wealthy Hanseatic cloth merchant Georg Gisze by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). Gisze’s name appears on several of the notes stuck to the wall behind him. And, typical of detail-rich Northern European art, the canvas is bursting with highly symbolic tidbits. Items scattered on the tabletop and on the shelves behind the merchant represent his lofty status and aspects of his life story. In the vase, the carnation represents his recent engagement, and the herbs symbolize his virtue. And yet, the celebratory flowers have already begun to fade and the scales behind him are unbalanced, reminders of the fleetingness of happiness and wealth.
In Room 2 are fine portraits by the remarkably talented Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), who traveled to Italy during the burgeoning days of the early Renaissance and melded the artistic harmony and classical grandeur he discovered there with a Northern European attention to detail. In his Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher (1526), Dürer skillfully captured the personality of a friend from Nürnberg, right down to the sly twinkle in his sidelong glance. Technically the portrait is perfection: Look closely and see each individual hair of the man’s beard and fur coat, and even the reflection of the studio’s windows in his eyes. Also notice Dürer’s little pyramid-shaped, D-inside-A signature. Signing one’s work was a revolutionary assertion of Dürer’s renown at a time when German artists were considered anonymous craftsmen.
Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), whose works are in Room III, was a court painter for the prince electors of Saxony and a close friend of Martin Luther (and his unofficial portraitist). But The Fountain of Youth (1546) is a far cry from Cranach’s solemn portrayals of the reformer. Old women helped to the fountain (on the left) emerge as young ladies on the right. Newly nubile, the women go into a tent to dress up, snog with noblemen in the bushes (right foreground), dance merrily beneath the trees, and dine grandly beneath a landscape of phallic mountains and towers. This work is flanked by Cranach’s Venus nudes. I sense a pattern here.
Dutch painters (Rooms IV-VI/4-7) were early adopters of oil paint (as opposed to older egg tempera)—its relative ease of handling allowed them to brush the super-fine details for which they became famous. Rogier van der Weyden (Room IV) was a virtuoso of the new medium. In Portrait of a Young Woman (c. 1400-1464), the subject wears a typical winged bonnet, addressing the viewer directly with her fetching blue eyes. The subjects (especially women) of most portraits of the time look off to one side; some art historians guess that the confident woman shown here is Van der Weyden’s wife. In the same room is a remarkable, rare trio of three-panel altarpieces by Van der Weyden: The Marienaltar shows the life of the Virgin Mary; the Johannesaltar narrates the life of John the Baptist—his birth, baptizing Christ (with God and the Holy Spirit hovering overhead), and his gruesome death by decapitation; and the Middelburger Altar tells the story of the Nativity. Savor the fine details in each panel of these altarpieces.
Flash forward a few hundred years to the 17th century and Flemish (Belgian) painting (Rooms VII-VIII/9-10), and it’s apparent how much the Protestant Reformation—and resulting Counter-Reformation—changed the tenor of Northern European art. In works by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)—including Jesus Giving Peter the Keys to Heaven—calm, carefully studied, detail-oriented seriousness gives way to an exuberant Baroque trumpeting of the greatness of the Catholic Church. In the Counter-Reformation world, the Catholic Church had serious competition for the hearts and minds of its congregants. Exciting art like this became a way to keep people in the pews. Notice the quivering brushstrokes and almost too-bright colors. (In the same room are portraits by Rubens’ student, Anthony van Dyck, as well as some hunting still lifes from Frans Snyders and others.) In the next rooms (VIII and 9) are more Rubens, including the mythological Perseus Freeing Andromeda and The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian by Arrows (loosely based on a more famous rendition by Andrea Mantegna).
Dutch painting from the 17th century (Rooms IX-XI/10-19) is dominated by the convivial portraits by Frans Hals (c. 1582-1666). His 1620 portrait of Catharina Hooft (far corner, Room 13) presents a startlingly self-possessed baby (the newest member of a wealthy merchant family) dressed with all the finery of a queen, adorned with lace and jewels, and clutching a golden rattle. The smiling nurse supporting the tyke offers her a piece of fruit, whose blush of red perfectly matches the nanny’s apple-fresh cheeks.
But the ultimate Dutch master is Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), whose powers of perception and invention propelled him to fame in his lifetime. Displayed here are several storytelling scenes (Room 16), mostly from classical mythology or biblical stories, all employing Rembrandt’s trademark chiaroscuro technique (with a strong contrast between light and dark). In The Rape of Persephone, Pluto grabs Persephone from his chariot and races toward the underworld, while other goddesses cling to her robe, trying to save her. Cast against a nearly black background, the almost overexposed, action-packed scene is shockingly emotional. In the nearby Samson and Delilah (1628), Delilah cradles Samson’s head in her lap while silently signaling to a goon to shear Samson’s hair, the secret to his strength. A self-portrait (Room X) of a 28-year-old Rembrandt wearing a beret is paired with the come-hither 1637 Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels (the two were romantically linked). Samson Threatens His Father-in-Law (1635) captures the moment just after the mighty Samson (with his flowing hair, elegant robes, and shaking fist) has been told by his wife’s father to take a hike. I wouldn’t want to cross this guy.
Although Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) is today just as admired as Rembrandt, he was little known in his day, probably because he painted relatively few works for a small circle of Delft collectors. Vermeer was a master at conveying a complicated story through a deceptively simple scene with a few poignant details—whether it’s a woman reading a letter at a window, a milkmaid pouring milk from a pitcher into a bowl, or (as in The Glass of Wine, Room 18) a young man offering a drink to a young lady. The young man had been playing her some music on his lute (which now sits, discarded, on a chair) and is hoping to seal the deal with some alcohol. The woman is finishing one glass of wine, and her would-be suitor stands ready—almost too ready—to pour her another. His sly, somewhat smarmy smirk drives home his high hopes for what will come next. Vermeer has perfectly captured the exact moment of “Will she or won’t she?” The painter offers some clues—the coat of arms in the window depicts a woman holding onto the reins of a horse, staying in control—but ultimately, only he (and the couple) know how this scene will end.
Shift south to Italian, French, and Spanish painting of the 17th and 18th centuries (Rooms XII-XIV/23-28). Venetian cityscapes by Canaletto (who also painted Dresden) and lots of bombastic Baroque art hang in Room XII. Room XIII features big-name Spanish artists Murillo, Zurbarán, and the great Diego Velázquez (1599-1660). He gave the best of his talents to his portraits, capturing warts-and-all likenesses that are effortlessly real. His 1630 Portrait of a Lady conveys the subject’s subtle, sly Mona Lisa smile. Her figure and face (against a dull gray background) are filtered through a pleasant natural light. Notice that if you stand too close, the brushstrokes get muddy—but when you back up, the scene snaps into perfectly sharp relief.
From here, the collection itself takes a step backwards—into Italian paintings of the 13th-16th century (Rooms XV-XVIII/29-41). This section includes some lesser-known works by great Italian Renaissance painters, including Raphael (Rooms XVII and 29, with five different Madonnas, among them the Terranuova Madonna, in a round frame) and Sandro Botticelli (Room VIII).
With ho-hum displays covering a thousand years of applied arts—porcelain, fine Jugendstil furniture, Art Deco, and reliquaries—this huge space is mostly a low-rent version of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The exception is its impressive collection of clothing (mostly women’s) through the ages, which is worth ▲. It’s presented in chronological order and accompanied by bits of historical context that make fashion seem more fascinating than fickle, even to the style-challenged (we know who we are).
Cost and Hours: Covered by Kulturforum combo-ticket, Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-18:00, closed Mon, Herbert-von-Karajan-Strasse 10, tel. 030/266-424-242, www.smb.museum/kgm.
This striking hall is filled with 600 exhibits spanning the 16th century to modern times. Wander among old keyboard instruments and funny-looking tubas. Pick up the included audioguide and free English brochure at the entry. In addition to the English commentary, the audioguide lets you listen to various instruments being played. This place is fascinating if you’re into pianos.
Cost and Hours: €6, covered by Kulturforum combo-ticket, Tue-Fri 9:00-17:00, Thu until 20:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-17:00, closed Mon, low-profile white building east of the big yellow Philharmonic Concert Hall, tel. 030/2548-1178, www.sim.spk-berlin.de.
Poke into the lobby of Berlin’s yellow Philharmonic building and see if there are tickets available during your stay. The interior is famous for its extraordinary acoustics. Even from the outside, this is a remarkable building, designed by a nautical engineer to look like a ship—notice how different it looks from each angle. Inexpensive and legitimate tickets are often sold on the street before performances. Or you can buy tickets from the box office in person, by phone, or online (ticket office open Mon-Fri 15:00-18:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-14:00 except closed July-Aug, tel. 030/2548-8999—answered daily 9:00-18:00, July-Aug until 16:00, www.berliner-philharmoniker.de). For guest performances, you must buy tickets through the organizer (see website for details).
This museum is worth a visit just to see the largest dinosaur skeleton ever assembled. While you’re there, meet “Bobby” the stuffed ape, and tour the Wet Collections, displaying shelf after shelf of animals preserved in ethanol (about a million all together). The museum is a magnet for the city’s children, who love the interactive displays, the “History of the Universe in 120 Seconds” exhibit, and the cool virtual-reality “Jurascope” glasses that put meat and skin on all the dinosaur skeletons.
Cost and Hours: €6, €3.50 for kids, Tue-Fri 9:30-18:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, closed Mon, Invalidenstrasse 43, U6: Naturkundemuseum, tel. 030/2093-8591, www.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de.
Western Berlin’s main drag, Kurfürstendamm boulevard (nicknamed “Ku’damm,” and worth ▲), starts at Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and does a commercial cancan for two miles. In the 1850s, when Berlin became a wealthy and important capital, her “new rich” chose Kurfürstendamm as their street. Bismarck made it Berlin’s Champs-Elysées. In the 1920s, it was a stylish and fashionable drag of cafés and boutiques. During the Third Reich, as home to an international community of diplomats and journalists, it enjoyed more freedom than the rest of Berlin. Throughout the Cold War, economic subsidies from the West made sure that capitalism thrived on Ku’damm. Today, while much of the old charm has been hamburgerized, Ku’damm is still a fine place to enjoy elegant shops (around Fasanenstrasse), department stores, and people-watching.
This church was originally dedicated to the first emperor of Germany, Wilhelm I. Reliefs and mosaics show great events in the life of Germany’s favorite Kaiser, from his coronation in 1871 to his death in 1888. The church’s bombed-out ruins have been left standing as a poignant memorial to the destruction of Berlin in World War II.
Cost and Hours: Church—free, daily 9:00-19:00; Memorial Hall—free, Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 10:00-17:30, Sun 12:00-17:30. Located on Breitscheidplatz, U2/U9 and S-Bahn: Zoologischer Garten or U1/U9: Kurfürstendamm, www.gedaechtniskirche-berlin.de.
Visiting the Church: The church is actually an ensemble of buildings: a new church, the matching bell tower, a meeting hall, and the ruins of the old church, with its Memorial Hall. Work is underway to strengthen all four buildings and make it possible to visit the top of the church.
Under a Neo-Romanesque mosaic ceiling, the Memorial Hall features a small exhibit of interesting photos about the bombing and before-and-after models of the church. After the war, some Berliners wanted to tear down the ruins and build it anew. Instead, it was decided to keep what was left of the old church as a memorial and stage a competition to design a contemporary, add-on section. The winning entry—the short, modern church (1961) next to the Memorial Hall—offers a meditative world of 11,000 little blue windows. The blue glass was given to the church by the French as a reconciliation gift. For more information on both churches, pick up the English flier.
As you enter the church, turn immediately right to find a simple charcoal sketch of the Virgin Mary wrapped in a shawl. During the Battle of Stalingrad, German combat surgeon Kurt Reuber rendered the Virgin on the back of a stolen Soviet map to comfort the men in his care. On the right are the words “Light, Life, Love” from the gospel of John; on the left, “Christmas in the cauldron 1942”; and at the bottom, “Fortress Stalingrad.” Though Reuber died in captivity a year later, his sketch was flown out of Stalingrad on the last medical evacuation flight, and postwar Germany embraced it as a symbol of the wish for peace. Copies of the drawing, now known as the Stalingrad Madonna, hang in the Berlin Cathedral, in St. Michael’s Cathedral in Coventry, England, and in the Kozan Cathedral in Russia’s Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) as a sign of peaceful understanding among nations. As another act of reconciliation, every Friday at 13:00 a “Prayers for Peace” service is held simultaneously here and at the cathedral in Coventry.
Nearby: The lively square between the churches and the Europa Center (a shiny high-rise shopping center built as a showcase of Western capitalism during the Cold War) usually attracts street musicians and performers—especially in the summer. Berliners call the funky fountain the “wet meatball.”
Filling most of what seems like a department store space right on Ku’damm (at #207), this sprawling history exhibit tells the stormy 800-year story of Berlin in a creative way. While there are almost no real historic artifacts, the exhibit does a good job of cobbling together many dimensions of the life and tumultuous times of this great city (and almost everything’s in English). It’s particularly strong on the story of the city from World War I through the Cold War. However, for similar information, and more artifacts, the German History Museum on Unter den Linden is a far better use of your time and money.
Cost and Hours: €12, daily 10:00-20:00, last entry 2 hours before closing, tel. 030/8872-0100, www.story-of-berlin.de. Times for the 30-minute bunker tour are posted at the entry.
This local artist (1867-1945), who experienced much of Berlin’s stormiest century, conveys powerful, deeply felt emotions about motherhood, war, and suffering through the stark faces of her art (she lost her youngest son in World War I). This small yet fine collection (the only one in town of Kollwitz’s work) consists of three floors of charcoal drawings and woodcuts, topped by an attic with a handful of sculptures.
Cost and Hours: €6, daily 11:00-18:00, a block off Ku’damm at Fasanenstrasse 24, U-Bahn: Uhlandstrasse, tel. 030/882-5210, www.kaethe-kollwitz.de.
The “Department Store of the West” has been a Berlin tradition for more than a century. With a staff of 2,100 to help you sort through its vast selection of 380,000 items, KaDeWe claims to be the biggest department store on the Continent. You can get everything from a haircut and train ticket (third floor) to souvenirs (fourth floor). The theater and concert box office on the sixth floor charges an 18 percent booking fee, but they know all your options (cash only). The sixth floor is a world of gourmet taste treats. The biggest selection of deli and exotic food in Germany offers plenty of classy opportunities to sit down and eat. Ride the glass elevator to the seventh floor’s glass-domed Winter Garden, a self-service cafeteria—fun but pricey.
Hours: Mon-Thu 10:00-20:00, Fri 10:00-21:00, Sat 9:30-20:00, closed Sun, S-Bahn: Zoologischer Garten or U-Bahn: Wittenbergplatz, tel. 030/21210, www.kadewe.de.
Nearby: The Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn station (in front of KaDeWe) is a unique opportunity to see an old-time station. Enjoy its interior with classic advertisements still decorating its venerable walls.
More than 1,500 different kinds of animals call Berlin’s famous zoo home...or so the zookeepers like to think. The big hit here is the lonely panda bear (straight in from the entrance). The adjacent aquarium is world-class.
Cost and Hours: Zoo-€13, aquarium-€13, €20 for both, kids half-price, daily 9:00-18:30, until 17:00 in winter, aquarium closes at 18:00 year-round; feeding times—Fütterungszeiten—posted just inside entrance, the best feeding show is the sea lions—generally at 15:15; enter near Europa Center in front of Hotel Palace or opposite Bahnhof Zoo on Hardenbergplatz, Budapester Strasse 34, tel. 030/254-010, www.zoo-berlin.de.
The Charlottenburg district—with a cluster of museums across the street from a grand palace—is an easy side-trip from downtown. The palace isn’t much to see, but if the surrounding museums appeal to you, consider making the trip.
Getting There: Ride U2 to Sophie-Charlotte Platz and walk 10 minutes up the tree-lined boulevard Schlossstrasse (following signs to Schloss), or—much faster—catch bus #M45 (direction: Spandau) direct from Bahnhof Zoo or bus #109 from along Ku’damm (direction: Flughafen Tempel).
Eating near Charlottenburg Palace: For lunch, try the traditional German grub at Brauhaus Lemke brewpub or sample Russian specialties at Samowar.
Charlottenburg Palace is the largest former residence of the royal Hohenzollern family in Berlin, and contains the biggest collection of 17th-century French fresco painting outside France. If you’ve seen the great palaces of Europe, this Baroque palace comes in at about number 10. I’d rate it behind Potsdam, too, though Charlottenburg is arguably a more pleasant outing: It’s easy to reach, involves no timed tickets, has good audioguides, and is across the street from a pair of great art museums. In 2016 the central “Old Palace” (Altes Schloss) is closed for renovation; the New Wing (Neue Flügel) remains open.
Cost and Hours: New Wing-€8, more during special exhibitions, includes well-done audioguide, Wed-Mon 10:00-18:00, Nov-March until 17:00, closed Tue, when facing the palace walk toward the right wing, tel. 0331/969-4200, www.spsg.de.
Visiting the Palace: The New Wing (Neue Flügel, a.k.a. the Knobelsdorff Wing) features a few royal apartments and the Golden Gallery, a real-life Cinderella ballroom. Go upstairs and take a substantial hike through restored-since-the-war gold-crusted white rooms. Yes, that Napoleon Crossing the Alps painting is the real deal (one of five originals done by Jacques-Louis David). Out back are sprawling gardens (free) with a few royal pavilions that I wouldn’t take time to visit (€2-4 each, covered by combo-ticket, fans of Caspar David Friedrich may find the New Pavilion’s paintings worthwhile).
This tidy little museum is a pleasant surprise, and would be worth ▲▲ in a city with fewer blockbuster sights. Climb three floors through a fun and substantial collection of Picassos. Along the way, you’ll see plenty of notable works by Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, and Alberto Giacometti, all accompanied by helpful English descriptions.
Cost and Hours: €10 combo-ticket includes audioguide and Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection, open Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-18:00, closed Mon, Schlossstrasse 1, tel. 030/266-424-242, www.smb.museum.
This pleasant museum, worth ▲▲ for enthusiasts, houses a collection of more than 250 works of disturbing Surrealist and pre-Surrealist art, thoughtfully organized by theme. The Surreal Worlds exhibit shows just how freaky the world looked to artists like Salvador Dalí, Paul Klee, and Francisco de Goya. The grand space connecting the museum’s two wings beautifully shows off the huge Kalabsha Gate, salvaged from an ancient Egyptian temple before it was moved to make way for the Aswan Dam.
Cost and Hours: €10 combo-ticket includes audioguide and Museum Berggruen, open Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-18:00, closed Mon, Schlossstrasse 70, tel. 030/266-424-242, www.smb.museum.
Wander through a dozen Jugendstil and Art Deco living rooms, a curvy organic world of lamps, glass, silver, and posters. English descriptions are posted on the wall of each room on the main floor. While you’re there, look for the fine collection of Impressionist paintings by Karl Hagemeister.
Cost and Hours: €8, more with special exhibits, Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, closed Mon, Schlossstrasse 1A, tel. 030/3269-0600, www.broehan-museum.de.
Berlin Story, a big, cluttered, fun bookshop (not to be confused with the Story of Berlin museum on Ku’damm), has a knowledgeable staff and the best selection anywhere in town of English-language books and helpful magazines on Berlin. They also stock an amusing mix of knickknacks and East Berlin nostalgia souvenirs (Mon-Sat 10:00-19:00, Sun 10:00-18:00, Unter den Linden 40, tel. 030/2045-3842).
If you’re taken with the city’s unofficial mascot, the Ampelmännchen (traffic-light man), you’ll find a world of souvenirs slathered with his iconic red and green image at Ampelmann Shops (several locations, including along Unter den Linden at #35, near Gendarmenmarkt at Markgrafenstrasse 37, near Museum Island inside the DomAquarée mall, in the Hackesche Höfe, and at Potsdamer Platz).
Fun and funky designer shops fill the Hackesche Höfe and are easy to find throughout Prenzlauer Berg, particularly along Kastanienallee and Oderberger Strasse. In Kreuzberg, head to Bergmannstrasse for designer boutiques and plenty of antiques (U-Bahn: Gneisenaustrasse).
Flea markets abound in Berlin, and virtually every neighborhood hosts one on a regular basis. The most central is along Am Kupfergraben, just across the canal from the Pergamon and Bode museums, with lots of books, music, and art (Sat-Sun 10:00-17:00). One of the biggest is right next to the Tiergarten park on Strasse des 17 Juni, with great antiques, more than 200 stalls, collector-savvy merchants, and fun German fast-food stands (Sat-Sun 6:00-16:00, S-Bahn: Tiergarten). The rummage market in Prenzlauer Berg’s Mauerpark comes with lots of inventive snack stalls—and on Sunday afternoons, karaoke in the park’s amphitheater (Sat-Sun 7:00-17:00, U-Bahn: Eberswalder Strasse). And on Sunday mornings the north side of the Ostbahnhof is the place to pick among the Cold War knickknacks that keep turning up in the basements of former East Berliners.
On the opposite end of the price spectrum are the swanky shopping centers clustered around Gendarmenmarkt and the glitzy luxury shops along Ku’damm—the place to go if you’re in the market for another Rolls Royce. Nearby is KaDeWe, one of Europe’s fanciest department stores, with a good selection of souvenirs...and just about anything else you can think of. Near the Bahnhof Zoo train station is the popular new Bikinihaus shopping center—a “concept mall” full of local artisan boutiques. Farther west, the Charlottenburg neighborhood’s “Antique Mile” stretches along Suarezstrasse (between Kanstrasse and the Sophie-Charlotte Platz U-Bahn stop).
Weekly farmers markets are huge in this city of foodies, and the biggest include stalls proffering fresh snacks of all kinds. A local favorite is on Baxhagener Platz in quickly gentrifying Friedrichshain, east of Prenzlauer Berg (Sat 8:00-14:30, U-Bahn: Samariterstrasse). More central is the twice weekly market that fills Hackescher Markt on Thursdays (bigger, 9:00-18:00) and Saturdays (10:00-18:00).
